20 Best Movies Of 2020

Thomas Vinterberg adds yet another provocative drama to his cachet with this blackly comic look at a group of depressed schoolteachers who decide to keep a small amount of alcohol in their bloodstreams at all times in the hope it will improve their lives.

Naturally that plan quickly goes awry, at which point the audience is asked to consider the utility of alcohol and perhaps even their own relationship with it.

Mads Mikkelsen is simply fantastic as lead Martin, a troubled middle-aged man hopeful that the answers he's seeking might lie with increasingly periodic sips from the bottle.

But Vinterberg refuses to be judgemental about Martin and his colleagues, leaving audiences to ponder for themselves whether alcohol is a spiritual salve or a crutch for a charmless life - if not both.