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The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Penguin Lessons review – Steve Coogan seabird comedy drama tries to sell feelgood mood
Here is a well-meaning, awkward tonal jumble of a movie, based on the bestselling memoir by former teacher Tom Michell; it is a quirky true-story heart warmer, in which an adorable penguin is apparently supposed to redeem not merely the human hero's personal heartbreak but maybe even the agony of Argentina during the 70s junta. It stars Steve Coogan, who has often in the past shown brilliant technique as a straight actor, and in Philomena with Judi Dench proved he is perfectly capable of carrying an un-ironised emotional story. But his performance here is bafflingly underpowered and opaque, as if he is slightly perplexed by the script he's been given. Coogan plays Tom, who takes a job in Peronist Argentina in 1976, teaching English at a stuffy private school for the sons of wealthy expatriates, and is wary of the overbearing headteacher, played by Jonathan Pryce. On a holiday to Uruguay, he rescues a penguin from an oil slick on the beach and finds himself responsible for this bedraggled bird. He ends up smuggling it back to Argentina with him where, named Juan Salvador, it becomes the unhappy and lonely man's feathered friend – actually, his only friend. But all this happens in tandem with Michell's personal involvement in combating the horror of the Argentinian junta in which innocent people get 'disappeared' by the secret police – and this of course blunts the feelgood mood that the film is trying to sell. Well, it is based on a story from real life, and real life is messy and doesn't conform to neat Hollywood genres. On the page, a memoir can perhaps better accommodate more of the baggy, contradictory impulses and implications. Weirdly, I felt that this odd film might have worked better if it was just about the lonely man and the penguin without the Argentinian tyranny – or just about the lonely man and the Argentinian tyranny without the penguin. The real non-CGI bird itself is very sweet. The Penguin Lessons is in Australian cinemas from 17 April and UK and Irish cinemas from 18 April.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'The Penguin Lessons' offers accidental lessons of its own
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
