'The Penguin Lessons' offers accidental lessons of its own

Yahoo

28-03-2025

The British do cozy cinematic whimsy like few others, and Peter Cattaneo has directed more than his share, starting with 'The Full Monty' in 1997 and sloping off gently from there. His latest, 'The Penguin Lessons,' shares with his 2019 drama 'Military Wives' the challenge of fashioning an uplifting, audience-friendly silk purse out of the sow's ear of the world's political complexities. When it works, it works, but in the new film it doesn't work as often as it needs to.
It's Argentina in 1976, and the military is gearing up for a coup d'état — whimsical enough for you? Into this tinderbox comes Tom Michell (Steve Coogan), a diffident British schoolteacher who has been hired to force English lessons into the brains of ruling-class sons at a Buenos Aires private academy. The country is falling apart, but, as the school's fubsy headmaster (Jonathan Pryce, wasted) warns the new instructor, 'We try to keep out of it.'
What about the penguin, you're wondering? During a week's beach holiday in Uruguay, Michell and a woman he meets at a bar (a charming, roguish Mica Breque) rescue a Magellanic penguin from an oil slick, and once the woman leaves, he's unhappily stuck with the bird despite all attempts to be rid of it. Coogan is a dab hand at dry British misanthropy (avianthropy?) with a soft center, and 'The Penguin Lessons' is very much in his wheelhouse as the hero grudgingly brings his new friend back through customs and into the cloistered confines of the school, where, dubbed Juan Salvador, it remains a secret for not very long. Think 'Dead Poets Society' with an assist from the Audubon Society.
This is all adorable, but the film's political backdrop pushes increasingly and awkwardly into the foreground. In classic movie fashion, Michell sticks his neck out for nobody until he finds new friends at the school, among them a breezy fellow teacher (Björn Gustafsson) and the school's two cleaning ladies, the elderly Maria (Vivian El Jaber) and her vaguely leftist granddaughter Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio). Then one of the characters is grabbed off a busy street in front of Michell by men with guns and sunglasses. Will he intervene? Would you?
When all is said and done, 'The Penguin Lessons' is about finding the courage to stand up to injustice at one's own peril — only with penguin poop on the floor rather than blood. Jeff Pope's screenplay, adapted from the real Tom Michell's 2016 memoir, adds this fictionalized subplot to the story and includes a pro forma tragedy to the teacher's past to further goad him. The film acknowledges the 30,000 people who disappeared during Argentina's 'Dirty War' and places the grandmother with the real-life Mothers of the Plaza 25 de Mayo, but the solemnity is undercut by the glibness of the script and the cuteness of Juan Salvador as he wins over the hearts of everyone except those men with guns. It's the kind of movie where one of the main characters is taken into overnight custody and emerges with bruises from which the filmmakers discreetly look away. Torture's hell on the box office.
Will you be moved? Possibly; I was at times, and sometimes against my better judgment. Coogan is the only actual human here, but, as in the far superior 'Philomena' (2013), he hoists the proceedings on the strength of his curmudgeonly decency. 'The Penguin Lessons' will please the kind of audiences who like to travel the world in comfort, as those PBS ads for Viking River Cruises say, but it accidentally offers those audiences uncomfortable food for thought. Cattaneo captures 1970s Argentina at a classic 'first they came for the socialists' juncture, one that might feel disconcertingly familiar once the credits roll and you check the news feed on your smartphone.
Would you intervene? No amount of penguins make that question go down any easier.
PG-13. At area theaters. strong language, some sexual references and thematic elements. 110 minutes.
Ty Burr is the author of the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr's Watch List at tyburrswatchlist.com.