Drunk

"The film opens with an open-air spectacle: hordes of young people running around a lake, the idea being to drink as many beers as possible and return to the starting point having finished the whole pack. Thomas Vinterberg paints a grim picture of an entire country, Denmark, ravaged by alcoholism. Then the screen suddenly goes black and the story centres on four men: Martin, Tommy, Peter and Nikolaj. They are all teachers in their forties. They do not have the lives they had dreamed of. Martin in particular, the history teacher, is acutely aware that he is no longer the young man who once made his wife’s eyes light up; his pupils despise his classes, and depression looms large. In this sense, Drunk explores the transition from being in your forties to your fifties, and the difficult task of seeing yourself as something other than the children we once imagined ourselves to be as adults. So alcohol is there, like an invitation to make your existence a little lighter, with the obvious risk of sinking into addiction." (Laurent Cambon; avoir-alire.com)