The Penguin Lessons

by Mike McGranaghan

Somehow, The Penguin Lessons is the second movie I’ve seen in the past six months that’s based on a true story about the unlikely friendship between a man and a penguin. The first was last year’s excruciatingly bad My Penguin Friend. Thankfully, this one is a lot better, in large part because it understands that trotting out a cute animal isn’t sufficient to sustain a feature-length film; you need fleshed-out characters and an actual story.

Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) is a cynical, burned-out English teacher working in Argentina during the 1976 coup. When political strife shuts down the school for a week, he escapes to Uruguay, where he saves an oil-covered penguin in an effort to impress a woman he wants to sleep with. A series of complications force him to take the animal back home. Tom wants to keep it hidden from the headmaster (Jonathan Pryce), but his rowdy students and some housekeeping staff find out about “Juan Salvador” and can’t get enough of him. Before long, Tom is developing his own relationship with the bird – a relationship that provides some healing.

The wrong way to play this material would be to highlight the wacky comedic aspect of it. There are indeed jokes about Juan Salvador defecating on the floor and engaging in hijinks, although the majority of the humor stems from Tom’s efforts to cope with becoming an unwitting caretaker. Steve Coogan’s performance is right on the money. Instead of leaning into obvious jokes, he plays the character’s frustration in a straightforward manner that produces much bigger laughs. It’s not necessary to have managed a penguin to identify with Tom’s exasperation.

The Penguin Lessons additionally grounds itself by taking Argentine’s Dirty War seriously. There’s a subplot involving one of the housekeepers being “disappeared” for perceived political views that helps to establish what a fraught time that was in the country. While that might sound a little weird to marry to a cute penguin story, the film astutely suggests that in times of upheaval, we all need something soothing to hold onto. For the frightened students and workers at the school, Juan Salvador becomes that beacon of hope.

At times, Jeff Pope’s screenplay forces the true story into a traditional narrative, especially in how/when the subplot about the kidnapping resolves itself. You can see the wheels turning a little bit. For the most part, though, director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) achieves a nice balance of humor and meaning. There are moments where you laugh out loud, others where you get slightly choked up. The strength of the picture is in how it never tips too much to one side or the other. Comedy injects levity into the serious subject matter, just as the serious subject matter grounds the comedy in reality.

Like the characters onscreen, we live in turbulent times. The Penguin Lessons is a movie that reminds us of the power of kindness and decency, as well as the ability of animals to give emotional comfort when we most require it. Just as he does with Tom, Juan Salvador will win your heart.

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