Another Round: Alcohol, Midlife Crisis, and the Final Dance

At Nikolaj’s birthday dinner, the friends do not ask Martin directly why he seems to have gone dim. Instead, they discuss a supposedly scientific hypothesis: human beings are born with a small alcohol deficit in their blood. The appeal of a quick explanation is easy to recognize. If the problem is a number, Martin does not yet have to admit his loneliness, distance from his wife, indifference toward work, or fear that the most important part of life is already over.

Another Round (original title Druk, 2020), directed by Thomas Vinterberg, follows four teachers who decide to maintain alcohol in their blood during the working day. Yet their experiment is only the visible plot. Beneath it is a story about lost meaning, male friendship, shame around vulnerability, and the dangerous hope that a substance can restore vitality. Spoilers follow.

Martin teaches history mechanically, barely notices his students, and has lost intimacy at home. Nikolaj, Tommy, and Peter carry their own fatigue and unspoken needs. Over dinner, they seize on the alcohol “deficit” idea and turn it into a protocol: drink only during the day, record the effects, and stop after eight in the evening.

At first, the results look convincing. Martin becomes bolder in class, Peter listens to a student more carefully, and the friends laugh more. Then the boundary moves. If a small dose “works,” why not test a larger one? This is where the film changes perspective. What looked like a controlled study increasingly controls the researchers. Reconnection blends with disinhibition, while a friendly agreement becomes mutual permission not to stop.

The film deliberately begins with the attractive claim that humans are supposedly born 0.05% short of the ideal blood alcohol level. The Danish Film Institute describes this as the theory that launches the characters’ experiment. It is not a medical fact or a safe target to reproduce.

The World Health Organization states that no form of alcohol consumption is risk-free and that harm varies with amount, frequency, health, and context. This does not mean that every sip inevitably causes illness. It means there is no threshold below which zero risk can be promised. The film is therefore best read as a drama about motivation, not as an experiment that proves a “correct dose.”

Martin’s early changes are real within the story, but they do not have one simple cause. Alcohol affects the nervous system and reduces inhibition. Expectation also matters: he now feels permitted to be bolder, make jokes, move freely, and stop monitoring every word. The group is a third factor. The four friends create a shared ritual, meet regularly, and finally discuss what troubles them.

A laboratory study by Michael Sayette and colleagues involved 720 social drinkers placed in small groups of strangers. In that short experiment, a moderate alcohol condition was associated with more coordinated smiles, more sequential participation in conversation, and higher self-reported bonding than non-alcohol conditions. This finding does not prove that alcohol creates intimacy in everyday life or improves relationships over time.

The film captures the difference between easier access to a state and acquiring a capacity. Martin can give a lively lesson after drinking, but that does not mean he has rebuilt his interest in teaching. He performs a role that alcohol helps him try on; he does not learn how to enter it while sober.

The men keep records, discuss measurements, and cite famous figures. Scientific form reduces shame: “We are not drinking; we are testing a hypothesis.” Rationalization is not always a conscious lie. Often it is a convincing explanation for a decision a person already wants to make.

A few questions can test this pattern. Do the rules change after an unwanted result? Do new exceptions appear? Can the “experiment” stop without bargaining? Do the people who carry its consequences know about it? In the film, the protocol gradually bends around the desire to continue. Data stop functioning as a check and become a decoration of control.

The friendship in Another Round is warm and genuine. The men notice one another, laugh, help, and gather around the same table. At the same time, the group magnifies risk. When everyone crosses a boundary, each individual choice feels less dangerous. Responsibility seems to dissolve among the participants.

They find it easier to talk about blood alcohol levels than fear of ageing, loneliness, or distance from a partner. Alcohol becomes a shared language for feelings that had no other vocabulary. That does not make the friendship false. It makes the film’s question sharper: can they keep the connection if they remove the substance that granted permission to be open?

The practical boundary between support and collusion is visible in action, not in the phrase “I’m here for you.” Support helps a person see consequences, tolerates a “no,” and allows stopping. Collusion minimizes risk, mocks caution, and makes participation a condition of belonging.

Martin, Nikolaj, Peter, and Tommy enter the experiment with different circumstances. The same amount of alcohol therefore carries a different psychological meaning for each of them. For Martin, it promises possibility. For Peter, it eases tension and seems to bring him closer to his students. Nikolaj translates life into theories. Tommy is the most isolated, and his story breaks the illusion that the game has the same price for everyone.

It would be inappropriate to diagnose fictional characters from selected scenes. Still, the film shows signs of impaired control similar to those listed by the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism: drinking more or longer than intended, failing to cut down, continuing despite problems at work or in relationships, and needing more for the same effect. One sign is not a diagnosis, and a film cannot replace clinical assessment. The criteria simply help identify the moment when “experiment” no longer describes what is happening.

Tommy supports the others while gradually losing his own footing. His loneliness did not begin with the experiment, but alcohol becomes a way not to face it directly. The most painful aspect of his story is that his friends can see the deterioration yet continue to interpret it through the frame of their shared adventure.

His death should not be reduced to one psychological explanation. The film does not give enough evidence to establish intention, diagnosis, or a single cause. We see vulnerability, isolation, and dangerous drinking accumulate. The uncertainty makes the scene more honest: tragedy does not resolve into a convenient formula.

During the family trip, the film does not show Martin drinking: he becomes more present, speaks to Anika, and admits how distant he has been. The trip still takes place during the period of the experiment, so the scene does not prove that this change arose independently of it. Intimacy is not repaired by one confession. His partner lived beside his absence long before the first drink; alcohol only speeds up the confrontation with what was already there.

This resembles an ordinary relationship pattern: after an intense conversation, people may feel that everything is repaired even though no agreement or behavior has changed. Repair requires repeated actions—hearing the response, acknowledging harm, tolerating mistrust, and agreeing on specific steps. For a wider map of such transitions, see our guide to adult life crises.

After Tommy’s funeral, graduating students invite the teachers to celebrate. Martin receives a message from Anika, drinks, and begins to dance. His movement recalls an ability he buried along with other parts of himself. Grief, freedom, alcohol, friendship, and danger occupy the same frame.

The ending does not prove that Martin is “healed,” nor is it simply punishment for drinking. His leap into the water can represent embodied vitality, a dangerous impulse, or both at once. Vinterberg leaves the contradiction open: a person can feel genuine joy inside a context that has already caused loss. The authenticity of a feeling does not make the route to it safe.

This exercise does not assess drinking and is not a substitute for help. It may be useful if the film touched a sense of lost vitality.

Vitality then becomes less of an accidental effect and more of a capacity that can be supported.

Consider speaking with a doctor or addiction professional if controlling the amount is difficult, blackouts occur, drinking harms work or relationships, more is needed for the same effect, or efforts to cut down repeatedly fail. After prolonged heavy drinking, stopping suddenly without medical guidance can be dangerous because withdrawal may be severe; NIAAA advises involving medical care in that situation.

For me, Another Round is not a film with a simple “drink” or “do not drink” moral. It is about a mistake that is easy to make during a crisis: confusing access to vitality with vitality itself. Alcohol may open a door for a while, but it does not build a life beyond it. The question after the final shot is quieter and harder: what is Martin prepared to change when the music ends?