The Penguin Lessons

Bluesky

Why don’t people keep pet penguins? They’re lovely looking birds, personable and affectionate once one gets to know them, and capable of adapting to a wide range of environments. The answer, you will learn here, is that they smell really bad. But that’s just one of the lessons in a film whose story becomes more pertinent by the day. As the US follows certain of its southern neighbours into becoming the kind of place where students are snatched from the streets in broad daylight for expressing non-approved thoughts, the complexities of avian companionship might not seem all that important, but the biggest lesson here is that simple friendship is the starting point for positive change.

Tom Michell, whose real life story the film is based on, and who is played here by Steve Coogan, enters the narrative as a quiet, withdrawn man with little in his life outside of work. That work involves teaching English, to teenagers, and it’s in that capacity that he’s been hired to join the staff at a prestigious Argentinean boarding school. He does not have an easy job there. His students, mostly the sons of the wealthy, are uninterested in learning and prefer to spend their time messing around or bullying classmate Diego (David Herrero) because his dad isn’t part of the country’s rising right wing clique.

Everything changes when Tom takes a trip down to Uruguay during a break and, in the process of trying to impress an unfeasibly glamorous woman (Micaela Breque), rescues a small Magellanic penguin from an oil slick. To his distress, he is unable to rid himself of the bird, with circumstances conspiring to keep them together until, before he knows it, he’s hiding it in his room at the school. Of course, it doesn’t remain a secret for long, and what happens afterwards is the stuff of many a classic inspirational teacher nostalgia-fest.

Except it’s not – or at any rate, that’s only part of the story, because this is Argentina and it is 1976. A brutal military regime is coming into power. As his connection with the penguin (named Juan Salvador and played in different scenes by Baba and Richard) deepens, he also begins to develop friendships with school staff members, including the cook Maria (Vivian El Jaber) and her politically outspoken teenager daughter Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio). By the time we learn the reason for his previous emotional guardedness, the stakes have been raised, and he needs to decide whether to remain a passive observer of life’s cruelties or take a stand and try to do some good in the world – dangerous though that may be.

Although at times he falls back on a persona we’ve seen elsewhere, Coogan is well cast in this tricky role, moving easily from humour to heartbreak. He’s the perfect partner for the charismatic Juan Salvador, as Tom sometimes uses the penguin to provide himself with emotional cover, but then ends up collapsing in guilt under its fixed stare. Although we never really know what the bird is thinking, it becomes a focal point for everyone else’s anxieties, and proves to be a great listener. Although the film deals with tragedy and has some very dark moments, the bond between Juan Salvador and Tom gives it a warmth that exists independently of the more formulaic feelgood parts of the narrative.

A carefully balanced film which largely gets away with its tonal shifts, The Penguin Lessons occasionally feels contrived – perhaps all the more so when depicting unlikely true events – but the quality of craft contributed by its actors and technical team carries it through. It contains urgent lessons for the times in which we live, but beyond that, it’s like to leave you with a visit to your nearest penguin population as your new top priority, regardless of the smell.