The Penguin Lessons
Though it sounds like an ill-conceived mashup of "Evita," "Dead Poets Society" and "Mr. Popper's Penguins," this funny/sad look at a tired teacher reinvigorated by a lost penguin earns passing marks.
“The Penguin Lessons” truly is an odd duck of a movie.
The premise: in 1976 Argentina beset by political strife, a humdrum British teacher arrives to teach at an elite boys’ prep school. Burdened by his own past trauma, he barely goes through the motions in the classroom until he becomes the unintended guardian of a lost penguin, who graduates from smelly intruder to unofficial school mascot beloved by all. The teacher is granted a new lease on life even as a military coup is disappearing innocents around him.
Honestly, it sounds like something a bunch of Hollywood types came up with while huffing on some strong stuff. “Why don’t we do a movie that’s, like, a mashup of ‘Remains of the Day,’ ‘Evita,’ ‘Dead Poets Society’ and ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins?!?’”
Here’s the thing: it’s true.
Tom Michell wrote a book many years after the fact about his experiences, which screenwriter Jeff Pope (“Philomena”) and director Peter Cattaneo (an Oscar nominee for “The Full Monty”) have adapted into a feature that mixes humor, pathos and political intrigue.
I didn’t think it would work — too many random ingredients tossed into the gumbo pot willy-nilly. But it gets passing marks.
Much of this is due to Steve Coogan in the lead role. With his innate ability to convey intelligence and a congenital peevishness, he’s perfect for playing Tom, a guy over 50 whose career seems to be sliding south qualitatively just as he moves jobs further and further that way geographically, working his way down the South American continent.
Disillusion and low expectations cling to Tom like a detectable odor. He arrives at St. George’s School in Buenos Aires shortly before the military junta that will overthrow the Peron regime. There are bombings and shootings nearly every day, though the school seems impervious on its distant idyllic plot.
It’s the sort of place where well-educated Europeans with low expectations settle, teaching the children of the wealthy and elite. (And possibly even some Nazis rumored to have escaped here.) Jonathan Pryce plays the headmaster, an old-school three-piece suit type of guy, who walks around talking about tradition and building the leaders of tomorrow.
He’s aware enough of the political climate, but has seen so many dictatorships in the region he figures the next can’t be worst than the last. St. George’s will endure.
Tom is… not a great teacher. He’s not even invested enough to be average. The boys put a tack on his chair the first day, and barely reacts. The sons of the new military leaders mercilessly taunt the offspring of the former regime heads, and Tom pretends not to notice. He drones on about his favorite British poets, his back to the class, his attention even further away.
When the school is shut down for a week by the latest violence, Tom and a Swedish teacher (Björn Gustafsson) decamp to Uruguay for a few days to relax and for Tom to do some skirt-chasing. (The other fellow is still lovesick over the wife who left him eight years ago.)
During a wonderfully romantic evening, he and fleeting lady love (a ravishing Micaela Breque) come across a huddle of penguins washed ashore by an oil slick. Only one is alive, and she insists they save it, sneaking it back to his hotel for a wash in his bathtub. She gets cold feet about the lovey portion and runs out on Tom, and the bird.
A running joke is that Tom wants to be rid of the thing, but the various authorities contrive to keep him from doing so. There’s a funny encounter with a customs officer who’s trying to weasel a bribe out of Tom to bring the penguin into the country, and each thinks the other wants the opposite of what they really do.
“I was trying to impress a woman I wanted to have sex with,” Tom haplessly explains. “I ended up with no sex… and a penguin.”
Soon the penguin, whom he dubs Juan Salvador, is living in his apartment at the school, staying on the terrace by day and in the bathroom at night. He endeavors to hide it from the other staff, but the head maid (Vivian El Jaber) and her teen granddaughter (Alfonsina Carrocio) discover it and are charmed. Something like a friendship grows between them.
Tom reaches a breaking point in his classroom, and decides to bring Juan one day to grab their attention. It works, and soon they’re actually following the lessons, learning a little something about the English language and about life… and maybe even being a little nicer to each other. Things go on from there.
The penguin is not anthropomorphized in any way, and doesn’t do anything other than very penguin-ish things like gobble down fish, poop out the leavings and occasionally honk when flustered. It’s a regular penguin, not a magic movie one.
“The Penguin Lessons” is ostensibly a comedy, and there are plenty of humorous moments to be sure. But its tone is more plaintive than har-har, and Tom is so imbued with sadness that even when the laughs do roll in there’s a note of tragedy to them. The depiction of the military dictatorship is kept at arm’s length but is still chilling in its depredations.
Man is sad. Man gets penguin. Man doesn’t want penguin, but in time penguin makes man less sad. And maybe even a better person.
I’ll admit it sounds like a kooky idea for a movie. What’s even nuttier is that it floats.