‘The Penguin Lessons’ Is a Waddling Delight
Here’s an unexpected charmer, a true story based on a popular autobiographical memoir about a man and a penguin, with a lightness of tone that doesn’t overdo the whimsy. The excellent Steve Coogan plays Tom Michell, a cynical and disillusioned British writer and scholar who accepted a job in 1976 teaching proper English, poetry and soccer in an upscale boys’ prep school in Buenos Aires at the height of Argentina’s postwar military dictatorship. Intelligently directed by Peter Cattaneo, the man best remembered for The Full Monty, the stressful anecdotes Michell endures make the job of winning over both the unruly, rebellious students and the stern, humorless headmaster (Jonathan Pryce) a taxing challenge.
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THE PENGUIN LESSONS ★★★ (3.5/4 stars) |
Relief arrives at last when he escapes for some fun and games on a drunken weekend visit to Uruguay, where so many surviving Nazis settled after World War Two. His planned debauchery with a local tart fails, but things pick up when Michell accidentally rescues a penguin from a near-fatal oil slick, and the little bird repays him by following him halfway across South America. The poor English teacher, who hates birds and has no need for a pet anyway, is stuck with a feathered friend he can’t get rid of. It wins him over like a Disney duck in spite of himself, and I’m willing to bet the same thing happens to you.
The students and the professor name the wonky newcomer Juan Salvador and waste no time staging a forbidden animal adoption. All understandable when the penguin displays real characteristics. He smells, he poops everywhere, prefers sausagy mashed potatoes and gravy to sardines and delights in hanging out with the soccer team. In the anecdotal passages adapted from Michell’s best-selling memoir by screenwriter Jeff Pope, nothing goes wrong. By contrasting the lurking horrors of political upheaval in a time when the Argentine government was ruled by fascism with the trust and courage the kids learn from Juan Salvador’s innocence and trust, there’s a valuable history lesson here beneficial to younger audiences. Despite the danger of G-rated sentimentality, which everyone involved heroically avoids, The Penguin Lessons is a work of surprising depth and subtle, irresistible impact. Lionel Barrymore famously said there are two things no actor can share the screen with and hope to survive: children and Lassie. Now amend that warning to three: children, Lassie and a penguin.