The Penguin Lessons

Having been a teacher of English language in a foreign country, I identified strongly with the protagonist, which may have colored my opinion of this film. That said, I found THE PENGUIN LESSONS an intelligent and charming film that accurately captured the experience of teaching a class of unruly and highly opinionated teenage boys of the privileged class. But this is not GOODBYE MISTER CHIPS. The story isn't really about the classroom, but about a man living a rootless expatriate life during his early middle age. He has no Significant Other and no real friends. His co-workers are other foreigners who are also escaping an unsatisfactory past. Shortly after his arrival in Argentina (which is undergoing a lot of political turmoil), he and a Finnish co-worker (who teaches history at the same school) take a night out in nearby Uruguay seeking drinks and female companionship. He meets an attractive woman near his own age. They take a quiet moonlit walk on the beach when they come upon a nasty oil slick which has left several dead penguins in its wake. One of the penguins is still alive and the woman insists that they try to help it. In order to impress her (and hopefully get her into bed), they take the penguin to his room and try clean it up. Its condition has already improved. The man and woman share a kiss and then she tells him that she's sorry but she can't go through with it. When he wants to know why, she confesses that she's married. She thought she could have an extramarital affair, but she simply can't go through with it. She leaves and he takes the penguin back to the beach. The penguin, however, will not leave him and refuses to go back into the sea even after he throws it back into the water. It's against the rules to have pets, but after the Uruguayan authorities will not keep the penguin, he reluctantly takes it back to Argentina and smuggles it into his room. The penguin then becomes an important part of his life when he befriends the cleaning lady and her political activist granddaughter (who have fallen in love with the penguin). The authorities snatch her granddaughter off the street and take her away. It happens all the time there and the kidnapped are usually never seen again. He wants to help, but he is afraid. And that is the basic situation. Although the movie is a comedy, there is a basic melancholy undertone. I found it consistently interesting and engrossing with lots to think about. Its comedy is gentle and more ironic than slapstick. The director is Peter Cattaneo, who previously directed the surprise hit, THE FULL MONTY. The cast are all top-notch, with Steve Coogan giving a beautifully underplayed performance as the teacher. Although the penguin is cute, I don't think that this is a movie for kids. I think teachers will love it, though.

My wife loves penguins. Any time there is a movie about penguins, I try to watch it with her. The fact that I ended up loving this particular movie so much was somewhat unexpected. So many things worked well. The balance of comedy and drama. The performances. The story arc. Definitely a "I laughed and I cried" sort of movie. And a quiet film overall. But I laughed harder than I thought I would, many times. Steve Coogan was perfectly cast as a cynical middle aged burned out teacher. The movie is really about him and less the penguin. It effectively does everything it means to do and I would happily see it again soon!

Steve Coogan plays a comically reprehensible and emotionally vacant man drifting through life. He lands in Argentina in 1976-just as the country edges into a military coup-and finds himself teaching English at a boys' school. Circumstances, both absurd and touching, lead him to reluctantly befriend a penguin.

This unlikely relationship sparks a journey of personal growth and rediscovery. Or at least, that's the idea.

Coogan's performance is both heartwarming and jarring, and I'm not sure if that tonal contradiction was intentional on director Peter Cattaneo's part or just the result of tonal whiplash. I wanted to like his character. I tried to root for him. But for some reason, I couldn't quite follow the arc of his redemption. While others in the film gradually warm to him, I remained stuck-still staring into the void of his character's emptiness.

Then there's the setting. Placing a penguin-centric personal redemption story in the middle of Argentina's 1976 coup feels... off. Historically accurate, yes. But I couldn't shake the sense that the filmmakers were using the backdrop of real political trauma as a kind of moral seasoning-maybe even a veiled commentary on today's geopolitical climate. Not inherently wrong, but the juxtaposition of soft-and-fuzzy personal growth with state-sponsored terror left me disoriented. In the end, I think the film's warm intentions got diluted by its ambitions.

8/10 STARS - The Penguin Lessons was AMC's Screen Unseen movie for March 18 and is based on a book of the same name by Tom Michell. Tom is an English teacher who takes a job at an all-boys boarding school in Argentina just as a military coup is beginning. At the start of the coup, he travels to Uruguay and comes upon a penguin that had been caught in a oil slick and washed ashore. He cleans up the penguin and then tries his hardest to get rid of it, even going so far as to throw it back in the ocean. But all to no avail. The penguin has decided that this human is its family and thus begins the sweet friendship between penguin and man. The backdrop of the story - the coup and resulting dictatorship in Argentina - adds a level of tension, but the heart of this film is about what the main character comes to understand about himself during his time with the penguin and how that journey of self-reflection helps him deal with his pain of past loss and his fear of speaking out on behalf of those in trouble. At the end of the movie, we see a short home video clip of the real penguin during its time there at the boarding school where Tom Michell taught. This is a sweet film with some underpinnings of darker themes, but nothing explicitly violent or sexual is shown. As a comedy drama, there isn't really any "action" to speak of, but that was okay because the story moved along well, the characters were interesting, and that darn penguin deserves an acting award for making me cry! It's a movie I wouldn't have gone to see on my own but I'm glad to have been able to watch it. Recommended. Short video review to come soon.

"I used to be young and idealistic," says Tom, a new teacher in 1976 at a boarding school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, "but I soon came to understand that reality is different." Blunt, hedonistic, and unsentimental, Tom is unmoved by any tales or facts of woe. He makes excuses for his shortcomings and inaction. Nevertheless, when penguins coated in industrial oil wash up on a beach and fascists seize power in a coup, Tom is in for a deep awakening despite himself.

Steve Coogan (Tom) and Jonathan Pryce star in this true story of wit, warmth, counterintuitive discoveries, humor, drama, and cute penguin antics. There is real depth to the dialogue, characters, story arc, and acting. The Penguin Lessons was filmed in Spain with an Argentine cast. Many of the actors lived through the recent dictatorship in Argentina and they add authenticity to the story. At the world premiere screening of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival I was deeply moved in the understanding that merely one person, or penguin, can make a big difference in the world in the face of such evil and tragedy.

Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you Ye are many, they are few.

, - Shelley.