Another Round (2020)

This is a Danish film, so before you even start, you know that there is very likely a dark underlying theme, and this film does not break that mold. There is an additional level of mounting tension that cannot be escaped from, and not a whiff of comedy. Four friends, who are all teachers) are in various ruts in the middle of their lives. We know the most about Martin (played by Mads Mikkelson), a man who is so bored and disengaged that he is floating without pleasure from day to say, distant with his family and so disengaged from his students that they and their parents stage an intervention. At a birthday celebration they all latch on to an unschientific but appealing idea that on a belief that the human body is born with too low an alcohol level, so if you strive to maintain a 0.05% BAC at all times—buzzed but far from drunk you will be the better for it. They set rules. They can only drink during work hours. The idea is that a low-level buzz releases stress and tension in ways that nothing else can. Why it occurs to not one of them that they should seek treatment for their varying levels of depression is beyond me, but they turn to the oldest anxiolytic known to man and while it starts off on the right foot for them, they all lurch to more would be better, which it rarely is, and they are old enough to know better, with varying degrees of consequences. The Danes know how to tell a story, especially one with a tragic underbelly.