First Take: Another Round - if Carlsberg made a film...

SYNOPSIS: Four high school teachers consume alcohol on a daily basis to see how it affects their social and professional lives.

Screen Unseen returned to Odeon cinemas last night, and as ever, the film buyers went all out to get a release worthy of the legendary strand- and what a way to welcome back the mystery film night. We had the latest release from Thomas Vinterberg for the homecoming, and much like previous Screen Unseen films, it is beautifully bonkers.

Vinterberg is able to craft a 1 hour 56 minute film that has comedic moments but powerful undertones too, as the script co-written with Mindhunter alumni Tobias Lindholm is able to show these 4 men, who are far from inbetweeners, go progressively down the road of alcoholism without preaching its message - a difficult task for any filmmaker to do. Handling cinematography duties is Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, who carries on the traditions that Vinterberg’s style has seen since his pioneering Dogme 95 movement alongside Lars von Trier- it is a very pure film in terms of what it is trying to do, and that is where it excels.

But with these performances, you can tell where the experience Vinterberg has of this style of filmmaking has helped- as Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe are really able to make this so called ‘experiment’ believable… by actually drinking on set. Yes, the Dogme ideals of doing everything on-camera still create madness over 25 years later. The rest of this cast are just as good, but knowing how this is a Danish film and that it’ll be difficult to nail the names, the castlist is gonna be linked here to save time. For the first Screen Unseen in over a year, it was a brilliant choice from Odeon, and I am delighted to say that there were no walkouts at Preston either.

THE VERDICT

Much like the England game which acted as the lead-in for many Odeon customers last night, Another Round is best enjoyed responsibly- it deals with some heavy themes in a very Danish way: with lots of humour. It’s a rightful winner of that Best Foreign Film Oscar, and it’ll be rolling out across the UK on Friday 2nd July.

RATING: 4.5/5