What if Hemingway was right?

What if alcohol is as essential to human cerebral functions as food and water? What if our maximum creative potential can only be reached at the threshold of the buzz-state? Is there actually such thing as a “functioning alcoholic?”

Thomas Vinterberg’s latest film Another Round seeks the boozy truth.

Mads Mikkelsen stars as Martin, a Danish high school teacher and closet jazz-ballet enthusiast suffering from a slowly worsening bout of depression. After being told of a fringe psych theory suggesting that humans are naturally born with a blood alcohol content deficit of -0.05% - which stifles our social abilities and general livelihood - Martin and three of his coworkers form a pact to deliberately maintain a constant BAC of 0.05% through moderate, intra-daily alcohol consumption. They each agree never to drive while inebriated, and that consumption is to be strictly limited to weekdays and work hours.

Martin’s life both in the workplace and at home receives a much needed jolt of electricity. His lectures take on a new level of passion and enthusiasm, and his previously disenchanted wife is suddenly reunited with the man she fell in with love with ages ago.

But naturally, the slope of outright alcoholism is a slippery one. When the group decides to test their limits by gradually increasing their target BAC level, their high-spirited outlook on life is quickly replaced by a malaise of ill-sentiment and drunken buffoonery. The darkness sets in just as quickly as it left.

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While Finn Skårderud - the psychologist whose supposed theory forms the premise of Another Round - is a legitimate psychologist currently living and operating in Norway, it’s worth noting that the theory itself is pure fiction, a playful misinterpretation of a preface Skårderud wrote for an outdated psych text titled “On The Psychological Effects of Wine.”

““On the first page, I wrote that after one or two glasses, yes, life’s pretty good, we think maybe we’re born with a 0.05 percent deficit. In the following paragraph, I reject that theory entirely.””

— Finn Skårderud

In other words: don’t try this at home. The science behind Another Round is in no way grounded in reality. Furthermore, the film should not be interpreted as a love letter to excess, rather a celebration of moderation. —Jackson Todd