The scene Mads Mikkelsen shot against his will: “I hated it, I didn’t want to do it”
If it’s possible for an Oscar-winning film to have been almost completely overlooked, or at least completely under-seen, then Another Round starring Mads Mikkelsen is definitely an example.
Released in 2020, when we were all trying to work out what on earth a bubble was and whether or not we’d get tasered for going to the supermarket, it was a booze-filled gem that’s worth two hours of anyone’s time.
Many, many people haven’t even heard of Another Round, let alone seen it, so you can duly seem like the most knowledgeable film buff in your friend group by recommending it, because even the premise is enough to get people to say things like “Ok yeah that does sound really good actually”.
And the premise is this: four grown adult male friends with actual proper jobs, like teachers, decide that because drinking alcohol makes you confident, they should maintain a daily level of drunkenness that makes them much better at everything they do. That’s it. It’s simple but effective. And of course, while they stick to trace amounts of boozing, everything goes well.
In fact, it goes more than well, as the four amigos discover that thanks to the life-enhancing effects of alcohol, they are suddenly more chatty, more successful, more attractive to their wives and don’t spend their time worrying about every little thing life throws up. So they decide to have a little bit more each day. You can probably see the problem coming here.
The Danish-made Another Round is not just a cautionary tale, in fact it is never patronising, it doesn’t demonise alcohol, but it does tell a sobering (sorry) story about shifting priorities in adulthood, how it’s harder to keep friendships going in later life and, for Mikkelsen, how men struggle to balance their inner stupidity with keeping a family in a mortgaged house.
Shooting the movie, which would go on to win ‘Best International Film’ at the Academy Awards, also proved to be an involved and emotional process, especially for the four main actors and the director, Thomas Vinterberg. With life imitating art, the actors would drink just enough to let their inhibitions vanish, allowing them to throw themselves into the role, including a beer-inspired two-minute dance sequence in which a besuited Mikkelsen pirouettes around and is soaked with champagne to an uptempo tune.
It wasn’t a sequence he was in any way looking forward to, telling Variety: “I thought the dance was like, if there was a dance, it should be a lifted universe, almost like a drunken fantasy. And [Vinterberg] was like, ‘No, you’re just dancing.’ I hated it, I didn’t wanna do it. I thought it was wrong for the film, and I just, he can’t convince me to do this, this is a realistic film; it’s too pretentious.”
But tragically, it took a real-life event for Mikkelsen and the rest of the cast to take a completely different outlook on their approach, not just to the film, but in general, as four days into filming Vinterberg’s daughter, who was to have appeared in the movie, was killed in a car accident.
Mikkelsen added: “Everything became a tribute to life all of a sudden, and I went along, and it, yeah, it’s a fantastic ending. It’s something about remembering to live.”
