I have to be honest: I didn’t love Thomas Vinterberg‘s Another Round.

I actually found it a tad boring. All those 40ish Danish guys sitting around getting gently bombed by candlelight. Yes, life can feel looser and “happier” and goofier when you’re drinking over dinner and in the evenings. I did that for decades, and I know all about rollicking good times followed by morning hangovers. But from a cinematic perspective I was quickly fed up by all those shots of guys raising their glasses, raising their glasses, etc. There’s more to life than sipping fucking alcohol all the time.

And the story….what was that? Better to be a jovial drinker like Roosevelt and Churchill, says Mads Mikkelsen‘s “Martin”, than a non-drinking mass murderer like Adolf Hitler. So he decides that living a life half-buzzed or seriously buzzed is a very pleasurable way to go. Until he descends into sloppy, bleary-eyed alcoholism, etc. Speaking as a nine-years-sober person, I just couldn’t sink into it.

Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman is another naysayer.