Encounter with scene-stealing penguin
Director: Peter Cattaneo
(M) ★★★+
There was a story on RNZ last weekend about dogs' eyebrows; apparently, they've evolved to facilitate the manipulation of humans. To us, it looks like the canine is having a melancholic moment so we rush in with the affection and chewy treats. It's all projection.
A similar sort of thing plays out in The Penguin Lessons, a simultaneously charming and timely film, wherein various of the human characters project an empathy for their issues on to the inscrutable bird of the title.
Steve Coogan is a disengaged peripatetic English teacher, a spent force in the classroom, hired by an exclusive school in Argentina — just as the generals take power again in the 1976 coup.
He intends a quiet expat idyll but enter the scene-stealing penguin — and the regime's goons — and things turn out otherwise. Initially, Coogan's character saves the penguin, but could it be that, ultimately, it's the penguin doing the saving?
The Magellanic penguin, Juan Salvador, is in fact played by several penguins, and this is crucial.
Time and again the bird seems to be following the director's instructions to the letter. But as recorded by the Hollywood press, this was achieved as a result of the penguin breed's close couple bonding. When one of the pair on set was gently but strategically transported to the far end of a room, the other would soon waddle over. And, cut.
No doubt, a measure of patience was required of the human cast, and that seems to have spilled over into Cattaneo's (The Full Monty) storytelling, which is allowed to unfold in its own good time.
As the far right lunges for power in these the sunset years of the western hegemony, The Penguin Lessons does a nice job of revealing the grubby, fear-mongering ignorance of desperate authoritarianism, without labouring the point. There is, of course, no sophistication to uncover there.
So, both inside the gates of the school and outside, the regimes are all about demanding silence and subservience in the interests of the already powerful.
Coogan delivers a nicely understated performance as the world-weary teacher, while the supporting cast does its best to pinch the odd scene back from Juan Salvador. Bjorn Gustafsson is a hoot as a jilted Finnish science teacher and Vivian El Jaber is a trick as one of the school's housekeepers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Book of the day: Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories
Tom Cruise: His Reacher movies paid for author Lee Child's English country house. Photo / Supplied New Zealand is, as Lee Child says, 'the world capital of Reacher madness'. Per capita we buy more Jack Reacher novels than anywhere else. As Child said in one TV interview, New Zealanders probably like his giant vigilante hero because he's a bit like the archetypal Kiwi: 'quiet, undemonstrative, not
Newsroom
a day ago
- Newsroom
The Dr Timoti effect
There is something special going on with The Unlikely Doctor, the new book by Dr Timoti Te Moke which has stunned the book trade by toppling Jacinda Ardern's memoir from the No 1 spot on the bestseller chart—in only its first week in the shops. The sales surge followed his momentous interview with Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon. It attracted 14,000 likes on RNZ's Facebook and has led to a wave of invitations. The attraction is obvious–Te Moke's inspirational memoir tells of his journey from prison to becoming a doctor—but it also captures or rather interrupts a kind of zeitgeist. The national narrative right now is miserable, racist, broke. The Unlikely Doctor shines a light, holds out hope in these angry, punishing islands. A free copy was up for grabs in the most recent ReadingRoom giveaway contest. Readers were asked why they wanted to read it. I was swamped with entries and a common factor among many was the theme of hope, salvation, the need to come up with something better than the current governance model of boot camps and benefit sanctions. 'I've spent 35 years helping people to read and write,' emailed Leigh Utting. 'For some of those years, I worked in prisons helping men to read and write. It was very difficult to find stories that spoke to them, spoke of them. I now help young apprentices (almost all men) and the lack is the same. If I had this book I could lend it to them, read it with them.' Deb Nation shared a story with parallels to Te Moke's journey. 'I once interviewed a gangland rangatira who earned his brutal leadership skills from the NZ Army. He grew up on the East Coast. His parents booted him out as a kid, and he survived by his brother sneaking him food behind the local dairy. 'Coming south to military training he found a weekend family in the local gang, and soon rose to the top. After endless spells in prison he eventually realised his mana as gang leader wasn't as good as it had been. Systems were changing both inside, and out. He was reaching retirement age. He decided to go straight. 'He got a degree in psychology and started coaching rugby to young gang kids. His aim was to divert them into another way of life. 'I really liked this guy. His patient understanding and empathy for people, was beyond excellent. I'm sure I'd find the same for Dr Timoti.' Reverend Michael Blakely kind of made it all about himself. He wrote, 'Having been in pastoral care ministry in South Auckland in the seventies, I served many struggling families from Māori and Pasifika backgrounds. I loved them and they loved me. As a school, parish and Health Care Chaplain, I got to know hundreds of whānau. I supported them on their journey towards wholeness. For a period, I was also chaplain to a well-known gang. The whakatauki that always governed my life was 'Act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God.'' Anne–Marie Patterson made it all about Dr Timoti. 'I work as an administrator, based in the Hunter Centre, for the Early Learning in Medicine (ELM) programme at the University of Otago where Timoti completed his 2nd & 3rd Years of his MB ChB degree. 'Timoti was always here in the Hunter sitting at a table studying. He spent hours and hours each day doing this but also was never too busy to sit and chat with others, or give you a smile as you passed by. I knew, as an older student, that he had an interesting past, but did not know the details. 'If I should win this book, it would be passed around the others here in our very special ELM community who knew Timoti, and then it would be placed in our Māori students study room as an inspiration to them.' Almost every entry was about life in Aotearoa, about Aotearoa problems, wanting solutions for the broken societies within Aotearoa. But there was also an epic message from a reader who only gave his name as Abdul. He wrote, 'I was born in Kenya to Somali parents. Growing up in Kenya as a Somali in late eighties and early nineties was not easy. I was struggling with identity as I was not fully seen as Kenyan and on the other hand I was not fully accepted as Somali. 'To make matters worse the government of Kenya introduced a draconian law that targeted people of Somali ethnicity. We were targeted and threaten by the government. My father lost his business. We were subject to deportation to a country that we had no connection with. Somalia at that time was on the verge of a Civil War. 'The Kenyan government introduced what was infamously known as the pink card where people of Somali heritage were subjected to trauma and discrimination using flawed screening process to determine their Kenyaness. 'We were grateful to many human rights lawyers who were speaking up against this injustice. We managed to survive this ordeal even though the trauma is still with us. It is only this year that the Kenyan government abolished one of the draconian policy that came to be known as vetting of IDs. 'I experienced this injustice as a little boy and I saw how advocacy by human rights lawyers can make a difference. 'For many years I had this dream of becoming a lawyer, however life got on the way. Finally at the age of 48, I was admitted as a solicitor and a barrister of the NZ High Court in Auckland realising my long desire and dream. 'It is stories like Dr Timoti that inspire people who did not have the chance to realise their dream. It would be a privilege to have this book. This incredible journey of resilience and hope could inspire me to share my own story in the hope of inspiring many who feel lost and doubt themselves, which is all too familiar to me.' A winner of the giveaway copy of The Unlikely Doctor will be announced in ReadingRoom on Friday. The Unlikely Doctor by Timoti Te Moke (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) is available in bookstores nationwide.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Kiwi singer stuns judges on The Voice Australia
Award-winning Christchurch singer Cassie Henderson has blown away the panel of celebrity judges at an audition for reality competition show The Voice Australia. The 26-year-old, who recently won Best Pop Artist at the Aotearoa Music Awards, sang Chappell Roan's 'Good Luck, Babe!' in a blind audition which had the judges all vying for a chance to coach her. American singer Richard Marx called her an 'absolute star', British Spice Girl Mel C told her she was born to do this and Australian singer Kate Miller-Heidke and Irish singer Ronan Keating were desperately pleading with her to join their team. Keating said her performance felt like that of an established artist, which is not far from the truth. Henderson has been singing from a young age, going from busking on the streets as a teenager to performing on X Factor New Zealand in 2013, coming fifth. 'I had a few setbacks and I kind of stopped singing for a long time and I kind of realised one day that there is nothing else I want to do in this world and in my lifetime,' Henderson told the judges. 'There was a point where I had sort of like online commentary about my voice and just about me and I think I just took it to heart because I was quite young at the time, I was like 14, and I think when you're a 14-year-old girl, anything anybody says is going to hit home.' Ultimately, Henderson decided to join Mel C, who could resonate with Henderson's story of dealing with trolls from a young age. 'I feel like there's a lot I can offer you. Being a Spice Girl, becoming successful at a very young age, there was a lot to deal with and I like to think I would be able to help navigate that with you. We can get strong and we can shut out the negativity because you have so much to offer.' Earlier this year, the 'Seconds To Midnight (11:59)' singer told RNZ's Music 101 that she was in awe after winning Best Pop Artist Award, which also had Frankie Venter and Georgia Lines as finalists. 'I am so grateful for the work ethic that I had when I was younger like I was busking for maybe four or five hours every weekend and that would be in Christchurch, freezing winters in the morning, and I just really wanted to a) make a bit of pocket money but b) I wanted to get in front of people and sing, and I think all of that experience and all of that failure and success and all of the ups and downs has made me who I am today. 'I feel like you have to have a level of confidence and some thick skin to work in this industry and I spent most of my first coming years just basically being ignored by people in the streets so that's like the perfect intro into being a singer really.' She said she had the final chapter in the trilogy of her EPs under way.
