Directed by Peter Cattaneo | Written by Jeff Pope, from the book by Tom Michell | 110 min | ▲▲
This is one of those sweet stories aimed at an older audience where its curmudgeonly lead character has to face up to an unresolved trauma and troubling current affairs. It’s all going to make him a better person, which is underlined further by his kindness to an unorthodox pet.
In this case, it’s a penguin. It’s hard to believe this is based on a true story, or even that anyone thought this would make a truly satisfying movie, but here it is — existing. Holding it entirely on his shoulders is Steve Coogan, delivering yet another charming misanthrope/aging lothario to add to his collection.
He’s Tom Michell, an English teacher arriving in troubled Argentina in the mid-1970s. The country’s on the verge of a brutal military coup and he’s just arrived to teach English to local toffee-nosed brats, under the aegis of Jonathan Pryce’s schoolmaster.
Michell’s not particularly interested in his job anyway, and instead takes a few days off out of the country, avoiding the military violence and going to a nightclub in Uruguay with a Finnish colleague (Björn Gustafsson). He comes back to Argentina with the flightless waterfowl in tow, having rescued it from an oil slick on the beach.
What up to that point had felt like a listless historical dramedy suddenly becomes an unorthodox funny-animal movie — and that’s easily the best part. The bird is inexpressive but cute. It has a gift for seducing everyone it comes into contact with, not something you could say about Michell.
What doesn’t work is any attempt to plumb Michell’s tragic history or the country’s socio-political stakes. Not much about this film convinces as the mid-1970s, nor does it succeed in delivering the kind of dread anyone would feel living under a military junta. Michell becomes friendly with his maid and her daughter (Vivian El Jaber and Alfonsina Carrocio), but their cross-cultural emotional connection doesn’t convince, either.
The Penguin Lessons has the bad luck of coming out within recent memory of I’m Still Here, with which it shares an era and a setting — a South American country under right wing oppression in the ’70s. The earlier film simply does everything so much better than this one. Not to mention, the last thing we need is another story of a white dude dealing with his bullshit while local activists are “disappeared.” This isn’t The Year of Living Dangerously or Salvador, not even close to as good, nor is it as nuanced as the recent Red Island and its examination of the colonial hangover.
In conclusion, the stuff with the bird is charming, and Coogan can play this kind of character in his sleep — if you need to see one movie this year about a man and his friendship with a penguin, this should be it. Everything else is dire.
