The Penguin Lessons: Waddle You Watch This Weekend?
By Chris Knight
Rating: A-
The first time I saw The Penguin Lessons, during a hectic day of screenings at last year’s Toronto international Film Festival, I was sure it had a shot at the People’s Choice Award.
No such luck; that prize went to The Life of Chuck (opening next June) with runner-ups Emilia Perez, which won two Oscars, and Anora, which won the rest of them, or so it seemed.
A second, more relaxed viewing the other day further disavowed me of my prize-winning proclivities. The Penguin Lessons is a lovely movie, fueled by a seductive mix of schmaltz and smelt (a fish enjoyed by penguins), but it’s not People’s Choice material.
Steve Coogan and friend do a two-step in The Penguin Lessons.
That said, if you like the idea of watching Steve Coogan deliver his signature dry wit and bounce it off countryman Jonathan Pryce, then settle in because it hits those notes perfectly. And if you like black-and-white flightless seabirds — well, of course you do. There’s a reason the word magellanic-penguin-phobic has never been written before now.
The Penguin Lessons, “inspired by real events” as the saying goes, opens in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1976. Tom Michell (Coogan), a grumpy, itinerant English teacher, has been working his way through South America and has just been hired at a stuffy boarding school run by the even stuffier Headmaster Buckle (Pryce). But as luck would have it, a military coup arrives in the country just a few hours after Tom does. With the school closed for a week, he heads north to Uruguay for a little vacation.
He meets a woman in a club, goes for a walk on the beach with her, and comes across an oil-covered penguin in need of rescue. She doesn’t take to him but the bird does — or as Coogan puts it: “Now I’ve ended up with no sex and a penguin.” He smuggles it back to Argentina (a comic short story all on its own) with the intention of dropping it off at a zoo, but of course one thing leads to another and...
The Penguin Lessons, while based on the memoir of the real Tom Michell, was written by Jeff Pope, whose Cooganalia includes The Lost King, Stan & Ollie, and Philomena. And it was directed by Peter Cattaneo, maker of such feel-good fare as The Full Monty, The Rocker, and Military Wives.
Read our interview with Steve Coogan and Peter Cattaneo about the film
That alone should tell you what to expect of this new one. Tom carries a secret sadness that will eventually reveal itself. The penguin (played by two birds named Baba and Richard) acts as a kind of confessor, both to Tom and those around him. There is a feisty young maid (Alfonsina Carrocio) at the school whose opinions get her into trouble, and whose fate teaches Tom a lesson about doing the right thing.
There is also, thanks to Tom’s profession, some wonderful, if somewhat didactic, poetic passages by John Masefield, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Charlotte Mew. (I’d recommend looking up her poem A Quoi Bon Dire, which packs a wallop of emotion into just four score words.) Tom even gets to deliver one of those speeches that seems to be focused on the penguin but is really all about himself.
All of which is to say that The Penguin Lessons is a charmer: a warmer of cockles, a tugger of heartstrings, even a jerker of tears if you’re not careful. And while it may in hindsight seem a little over-engineered to do all those things, that doesn’t dampen the effect. People’s Choice material or not, I loved it.
It is also, oddly, 2024’s second man-meets-penguin comedy-drama. About a month before The Penguin Lessons had its world premiere at TIFF, a French movie called My Penguin Friend opened in France, featuring Jean Reno and another oiled-soaked bird.
It makes sense. Penguins are said to mate for life. The movies also come in pairs.
The Penguin Lessons. Directed by Peter Cattaneo. Starring Steve Coogan, Jonathan Pryce, and penguins Baba and Richard. In theatres March 28.