ANOTHER ROUND: A Darwinian Study of Alcohol
Nordisk FilmAccording to Norwegian philosopher Finn Skårderud’s hypothesis, human beings are born with a deficit of 0.05‰ of alcohol in their blood. In other words, humans need about two glasses of wine to feel better and get their creativity, courage and open-mindedness boosted. The Danish Oscar contender Another Round – rather than testing it – employs the hypothesis to perpetuate the “alcoholistic” bridge between how alcohol can open up a life, but also demolish another.
The film follows the mundane existence of four teachers – the leading character Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) and his three best friends: Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) and Peter (Lars Ranthe). With style resembling the Dogme 95 customs (e.g. handheld camera, diegetic music), the director Thomas Vinterberg contrasts the stodgy people having the midlife blues and the same people after getting juiced up. During the “boring” expositional scenes with families, teachers and parents, the barely moving camera is set in unison with the edgy diegetic sounds. However, when the friends get (mildly) inebriated, they start dancing while the flying camera raves around them. Put differently, the smoothness of being “spirited” neutralises the awkwardness of being sober and lifeless. As the characters start testing Skårderud’s hypothesis, which initially vivifies their souls, the viewer inevitably begins to wonder whether the little experiment will come to grief in the end. Since there can’t be any thematic progression if the characters simply maintain the 0.05‰ and never go higher, the only logical development is this: they start drinking, they have fun, but ultimately, they take it too far. And that’s precisely what happens during the film’s developmental middle. Nonetheless, writers Vinterberg and Lindholm carefully intertwine another thematic concept within the predictable “everything-goes-bonkers” narrative line.
After Peter drinks during his music class, one expects that his students will find out or that he won’t be able to finish the lesson. However, his students start singing better than ever. The same goes for Martin who, after liquoring up, gains better control of his classroom and, for the first time, his students listen to him teach in awe. Consequently, the four mates decide to increase the permilles, being cognisant of the trade-offs, and it’s all fun and games for a while. Though, as expected, they all wreck themselves one night, and they discontinue the experiment. It turns out, however, that the experiment has enkindled Tommy’s alcoholism, which engenders the friends’ deploration to have launched the experiment . . . but does it actually?
Another Round illuminates the “alcoholistic” bridge between freedom and oblivion – alcohol can either give you wings or can squelch you – however, the main character Martin isn’t on the bridge. Because of the development of Tommy’s alcoholism, he might be thinking he’s thereon, but the film’s historical examples and the juxtaposition of character traits denote otherwise. During his history class, Martin talks about Hemingway and Churchill. However successful, the American writer died (more or less) due to his heavy drinking, and the hedonist Churchill – having smoked around 200,000 cigars and drunk copious amounts of spirits during his lifetime – lived until he was 90. During the film’s press conference at SSIFF, Vinterberg pondered whether Churchill would’ve been that successful as a leader during WWII if he wasn’t drinking so much. One will never know, but his film elegantly indicates why people like Churchill were “allowed” to live long enough to accomplish glory.
According to the DSM-IV criteria for alcohol use and dependence, Hemingway can be deemed an alcoholic; Churchill cannot (single criteria written in italic). The first criterion, manifesting potential alcoholism the clearest, is spending a lot of time drinking; something that both Hemingway and Churchill were famous for. Though, to label somebody an alcoholic, one should also examine the consumption’s effects on their health and life. To cope with his depression and the physical pain following various unlucky experiences – throughout his life, Hemingway suffered from malaria, dysentery, skin cancer, and was almost killed in two back-to-back plane crashes rupturing most of his organs and leaving first degree burns over much of his body – he gradually increased the heaviness of his drinking.
On the other hand, Churchill’s consumption remained pretty much constant during his lifetime. Since most of his permanent maladies were explained by alcohol consumption, Hemingway’s doctors dragooned him to stop drinking. Though he never stopped drinking for a long time. In 1936, Churchill won a bet with a mate who challenged him to abstain from drinking hard liquor for a year. Following his father’s death, Hemingway not only started to drink more heavily, but his behaviour shifted to excessively violent and self-destructive – some of his biographers are sanguine that his accident-prone behaviour might not have been coincidental. In contrast, Churchill never seemed to have social or occupational troubles owing to his drinking: he wrote more than fifty books in eighty volumes, painted over 500 paintings, was the highest-paid journalist in the world at some point, and, of course, led Britain to victory in WWII.
Moreover, there’s no evidence of Churchill consuming alcohol to avoid symptoms of withdrawal, and frankly, it isn’t documented whether Churchill ever suffered withdrawal. Consequently, one can assume that Hemingway’s life partly plummeted due to alcoholism; Churchill’s didn’t. Nonetheless, Hemingway managed to abstain from drinking when writing, or put differently; he never gave up on activities important or interesting to him to drink alcohol. Because during his most creatively successful years, Hemingway’s life goal wasn’t to get drunk, but to write, and write, and write. He was confident that drinking and writing were not an optimal combo. He wrote in the morning and didn’t start drinking until the afternoon. Nonetheless, after suffering six untreated concussions, owing mostly to his self-destructive behaviour, he was engulfed in depression and paranoia – at some point, Hemingway’s mental issues started to prevent him from writing – and despite the psychological treatments afterwards, his life goal altered permanently; he wanted to commit suicide.
Seven of Hemingway’s close family relations died by suicide, including his father, sister and brother. Scientifically speaking, the failure to treat mental health issues and the effect of the physical maladies on one’s mentality compounded by substance abuse lead to suicide. There’s no record that Hemingway’s father was also an alcoholic; however, seriously sick with diabetes and heart disease and suffering losses from investments in real estate, he developed depression and then committed suicide. It seems that something coerced the Hemingway family members to end things. According to psychologists, part of the resounding impact of suicide on families is that relatives fear it runs in the family. They identify with the “committer” as their relative, yearn to be with them, and after grieving so hard, the unconscious fantasy to reconnect with them is enkindled, which might lead to the irresistible urge to take their own lives. Hence, it’s not a surprise that after his father’s suicide, Hemingway wrote: “I’ll probably go the same way”. Moreover, suppose one searches for possible genetic explanations to why heavy drinking doesn’t always lead to alcoholism. In that case, one should consider that specific genes alter how alcohol-metabolising enzymes work, which changes how alcohol affects one’s brain. Some people have genes that make the enzymes in the liver – the so-called alcohol dehydrogenases converting alcohol into acetaldehyde, which makes sure our brain is less affected – faster at their job than other variants of those genes. People with faster-working enzymes tend not to drink as much and are at a lower risk of alcoholism, and vice versa. So, what if Churchill’s and Martin’s enzymes were like a bat out of hell, and Hemingway’s and Tommy’s were snail-like? In this case, however, one should consider both genetic and environmental reasons.
According to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, some individuals have specific characteristics making them more likely to survive and reproduce. He argues that, for example, wolves with long legs are allowed to run more quickly and hence, catch prey and thereby avoid starvation and so produce offspring having long legs allowing to repeat this process. In other words, natural selection sorts out the winners – those who have any advantage, however slight, over others to survive and procreate – however, not only physical traits are vital, but also one’s adaptation to the environment. Natural selection also happens in the human world where it doesn’t affect only reproductive potential (e.g. women seem to use the “shoulder width to waist width” ratio to select men, and men – the “waist width to hip width” to select women) but also changes one’s “status” due to non-physical endurance, corresponding with the environment. For instance, the “nerd” – short-sighted, timid, short on social skills, obsessed with numbers or abstract processes, and having barely any muscular development – used to be the quintessence of a miserable life. Then again, with the nascency of technology, “nerd” characteristics began to be extremely valuable. Therefore, humans aren’t evolving now, or at least too slowly to matter, but the ever-changing environment dragoons people to adapt. And those who can’t fall defeated.
Their biology burdens human beings with a plethora of cognitive habits that were sensible when they evolved – e.g. habits around food, sex, anxiety and excitement – but now hinder our effectiveness in the modern world. For example, we find it hard not to overeat (back in the day the food supply was scarce, now supermarkets abound with myriad brands of foodstuffs), or to be monogamous and not to think about sex all the time (partly due to the normalisation of contraception, pornography, masturbation, etc. following the sexual revolution), or to distinguish real threats from baseless anxieties (e.g. talking about diseases, however raising awareness, makes us more worried about us having a disease). And with the increase in stress, in general, people drink more alcohol.
A study shows that apart from economic growth, stress leads to higher alcohol consumption and more cases of alcoholism; something that is clearly manifested during the COVID-19 pandemic – more and more people tend to cope with the health and economic influences of the disease by drinking more than ever. Because of the global uncertainty, we can assume that almost every person is anxious about their future, and might have begun a liquor therapy. But why haven’t we all become alcoholics? Darwin asserts that changes to the environment can dramatically alter which members of a species will thrive within it. When one contextualises this thought within the COVID-19 frame, one infers that more people are believed to become alcohol use abusers, which is a statistical fact, but some people will be able to endure. And Another Round offers us a glimpse into Darwin’s natural selection by illuminating the traits of Martin, who manages to adapt to the new “alcoholic” environment, and Tommy, who develops alcoholism and hence, falls defeated.
Both Martin and Tommy are bored by their jobs, and after getting juiced up, they become more confident and thriving in the classroom. Nonetheless, Tommy’s life changes for the worse; Martin’s doesn’t. Why? Martin is innately a sensible problem-solver whereas Tommy is sloppy, grubby and passive. After realising he has lost the connection with his wife, Martin faces the issue and attempts to rejuvenate his marriage: he asks his wife whether he has become boring and discusses ways with her to enliven their marriage (e.g. they go on a canoeing holiday where they jazz up their sex life). Also, when his students’ parents confront him about their children’s low grades, he’s willing to improve the situation at any cost, even if that means the assignment of a new teacher. In contrast, Tommy seems to have never attempted to reunite with his ex, even though he still bears her in his heart. After every night of heavy drinking, Martin cleans the houses, even Tommy’s, from all the bottles whereas Tommy, before a night out, mentions that nobody will notice if he doesn’t change his decrepit socks. Even though Martin offers the friends to go higher than 0.05‰, he quaffs while dancing with his mates or enjoying a vivifying tune by himself. On the other hand, Tommy seems only to desire an increase in consumption just for the sake of it; e.g. his facial expressions denote that he isn’t interested in the classical music piece Martin, Nikolaj and Peter are enjoying when becoming inebriated. Also, Tommy is quite sloppy – he stashes a half-dozen liquor bottles in the school’s sports equipment area so clumsily that the janitor finds them immediately.
All these differences in the friends’ personality – or from a Darwinian perspective “in their genes” – presupposes the following outcome. Tommy appears drunk in school, feels intimidated when Martin warns him about the possibility of self-destructive behaviour, and his first thought after waking up is to open the fridge and grab the bottle. Yet Martin remains the sensible problem-solver the viewer has known from the start. For example, according to Skårderud’s hypothesis, one mustn’t drink after 8pm, so when Martin sees it’s 8:14, he begins to sip water. And when his family members find out about the drinking experiment, he admits it and humbly addresses his actions. This doesn’t sound like an alcoholic’s behaviour because an alcoholic would rarely admit what they’re doing and why it’s wrong. Thus, following the DSM-IV criteria, both of them gradually increased the heaviness of their drinking and spent a lot of time drinking; however, only Tommy could never stop himself from drinking, had job troubles, continued to drink even though it was causing trouble with friends, had given up on activities that were important or interesting to him (e.g. the football team he coached). And in a Darwinian context, Another Round claims that being a sensible problem-solver gives you an advantage over sloppy and passive people when the environment becomes “alcoholic”.
With the Martin-Tommy comparison, Vinterberg lends the viewers the “eyes” of the nature so one can observe the miniaturised alcoholic world where natural selection decides who becomes an alcoholic (also Hemingway) and who gets to exploit the liquor’s good qualities (also Churchill). In reality, however, humans don’t have the eyes of the nature. And it remains unknown whether one is destined to be an alcoholic or not. So, people should often examine the side of the bridge they’re approaching—checking if you cover the DSM-IV criteria is a good start.
Enjoy your beverage, but respect yourself.