With his daring new film Thomas Vinterberg reunites with Mads Mikkleson to give us a grounded, effecting, at times hilarious journey into four men’s life as they experiment with alcohol usage at varying levels, following a dinner conversation around a certain essayists prognosis that frankly we would all be a lot better off with a couple percent more alcohol in our systems. The film is human, the film is powerful, the film is funny frequently and the film is fundamentally fantastic. By far one of my favourites of the year.
The film does feel in so many ways like a sublime return to form for Vinterberg, not that his films between this and his previous masterpiece The Hunt weren’t great, they just didn’t have the clear mastery of the craft that Vinterberg’s best films in the Danish language have. One can speculate how much this does indeed have to do with the fact that Vinterberg is writing and directing and Mikkelson is acting in their native languages, however for me one need only note that the same trio of Mikkelson, Vinterberg and co-writer Tobias Lindholm are working again once more for the first time since The Hunt, one of the best films of the past decade. This trio of immense talents work so well together and Vinterberg’s hand as an auteur is so steady when it comes to balancing of tones and genres that one can only sit back and marvel at the achievement. Two other members of The Hunt family join us for this film also, with supporting actors Thomas Bo Larsen and Lars Ranthe, respectively as Tommy and Peter, with Magnus Millang as Nikolaj rounding out the four friends that make up our ensemble. Like any good ensemble film, although Mikkelson is indeed the lead, the rest of the characters allow us to really look at all side of this very specific situation that is being studied and dissected.
Bo
Larsen gives us juxtapsoingly a lot of the films darkest moments and also many
of its very funniest. Larsen’s character is the greatest amalgamation of the
films own nature of course, this is a film that revels in slapstick humour,
before absolutely devastating us with brutal human violence, sometimes verbal,
sometimes physical. It’s a powerful tightrope walked effortlessly. Visually the
film is stark in its use of montage of often visually frantic, overall one can’t
help but feel a similar sense of intoxication when one watches the film. The
film revels repeatedly and concludes in fact with moments of absolute joy and
freedom, always punctuated (in no case better or more so than in the finale) by
a undercurrent of pain and truth. Again, this a film that is fundamentally
human. It’s characters are flawed and although are all clearly men of some
quality, do not alwys give us the absolute best that we wish for them. They are
men who have made a serious of decisions and the film doesn’t look down on
them, it doesn’t mock them, it doesn’t ridicule them. It simply steps back and
examines and studies.
Vinterberg and Mikkleson give us another 9/10 drama which this time blends a lot more comedy than their previous outing together. This time we are with a film more in line with Vinterberg’s earlier darkly comedic works, but here there is no dogme, it is an assured and masterful piece of work, balancing tones to perfection and conveying a deep human drama perhaps with more warmth than any other film of this past year. Funny, brilliant, dark, honest and pulled off without a fault. Raise a drink, dance, watch this film as soon as you can. And if you have watched it, put it on again!
P.S. Perhaps half of my joy of this film just comes from the power and majesty of Vinterberg when he talks about it, and the touching familial link this film comes from. His voice is so tender and assured that it just defies anyone to not wholly grasp that this is a man in complete control of his craft. I mean in all frankness that was entirely visible from the film itself, but hearing Vinterberg talk about the film only solidifies it for me.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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