“The Penguin Lessons” is based on the true-life adventure of Tom Michell, a disillusioned and cynical Englishman who opted for what he thought would be an easy road, a job at a prestigious English boarding school halfway around the world in Buenos Aires. St. George’s College is the prep school of choice for the children of the country’s movers and shakers. But it’s 1976, and he’s oblivious to the political turmoil in the country and daily inflation that sends prices soaring beyond reach for the majority. The military has taken over the government and begun their policy of kidnapping and killing their political opponents, los desaparecidos—the disappeared. Mitchell was just looking for some respite from his day-to-day life, a life that he holds close to the vest and shares with no one. But this is no cakewalk. His students are almost unreachable, and the headmaster spends his days micromanaging and catering to the rich and well-connected.
Looking for a break when the school is temporarily shut down, he takes a trip to neighboring Uruguay with a fellow teacher. Taking a companion was never his idea, but the needy teacher, unaware of the concept of boundaries, insisted and Michell acquiesced. Michell strikes gold on the dance floor, and he and his conquest leave the bar for a starlit stroll on the beach. But the beach is anything but pristine. An oil slick has marred the sand and dead penguins, suffocated by the toxic oil, have washed ashore. His companion immediately notices that one small penguin seems to have survived, and she insists that they take him back to Michell’s hotel and clean him up. Not how he envisioned his evening, but they succeed in saving the penguin, just not their possible romance.
Michell, disillusioned and laden down by a waddling bird, takes the penguin back to the sea to set him free. But that was Michell’s idea and not the penguin’s. Like a duckling imprinting on his presumed mother, the penguin follows him everywhere. Soon the two of them are on their way back to Argentina where Michell hopes to unload him at the zoo. First, however, is a trip through customs where the penguin is unable to keep his beak shut. But even during an interrogation where he tries to get the border agent to relieve him of the penguin, the penguin wins, Michell loses, and they traipse back to the school.
But, as you might surmise, this isn’t about the penguin at all but about the effect he has on one and all. Living on Michell’s balcony by day and in the bathroom by night, the penguin is a poorly kept secret. All who encounter him are entranced, and this wordless beast of the wild becomes the vessel for everyone’s confessions. Michell, so taciturn at his arrival, softens, almost imperceptibly, as he recognizes in others the troubles and sadnesses he has experienced in his past. It is not Michell who makes new friends but the penguin, now named Juan Salvador, who binds him to others. As Michell becomes more open to those around him, he also begins to understand the horrific political situation that bleeds into the lives of everyone he encounters.
Photo by Sophie Koehler, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Michell arrived in Argentina just as the military staged a coup to remove Isabel Perón from power. When Juan Perón died in 1974, his wife Isabel took over the government. She was ineffectual on all fronts, losing her congressional majority and struggling to suppress both left- and right-wing guerrilla organizations. She was an easy target, unable to stop the violence between the factions and hampered by the runaway inflation that would continue to get worse as time went on. Michell’s easy gig became fraught with danger and anger as his eyes are opened, in great part because of his feathered companion. He begins to understand what the workers around him experience daily.
“The Penguin Lessons” benefits greatly from its two stars. Steve Coogan, Michell, transforms gradually from a taciturn curmudgeon looking to escape the world around him to an empath whose eyes are opened to pains greater than his own. He becomes a man who, when faced with dire circumstances, learns to lean in and face them, aiding others as he helps himself.
Jonathan Pryce, a master of supercilious characters, plays the headmaster as a man who has lived his life as a self-impressed impresario never seeing the forest for the trees because the forest contains dangers he’s ill prepared to face. His interactions with the powerful parents of his students are obsequious; with his employees he is a martinet, exercising power rather capriciously, taking out his frustration on those who can’t fight back.
Photo by Lucia Faraig Ferrando, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
But the true star of this tale, the one who’s in the title of the film, is the penguin. Never pass up an opportunity to interact with penguins, and this one is no different. Funny-looking, scruffy animals whose stench is unmistakable, penguins are endlessly entertaining. Their behavior is repetitive—eat, waddle, swim, squawk and repeat—and always hilarious. They are unbelievably cute and charming and, as was the case in this film, very loyal. They have individual personalities, some industrious, others lazy, some enterprising, others grifters, but they are amusing and always watchable. All the adult actors generously ceded to the actions of Juan Salvador.
This may be the first time a penguin was used to deepen character development and underscore lessons in life. Like the others in the film, I, too, would have opened up to Juan Salvador, aware, on the one hand, that he couldn’t understand what I was saying and believing, on the other hand, that he was leading me down a path to enlightenment.
W.C. Fields famously said, “Never work with children or animals” and he had a point. The penguin stole every scene and every heart both on screen and off. Don’t miss this one. Like every great British actor, it’s all in his eyes.
Opening March 28 at the AMC Century City 15, AMC Santa Monica 7 and AMC The Grove 14.
Neely Swanson spent most of her professional career in the television industry, almost all of it working for David E. Kelley. In her last full-time position as Executive Vice President of Development, she reviewed writer submissions and targeted content for adaptation. As she has often said, she did book reports for a living. For several years she was a freelance writer for “Written By,” the magazine of the WGA West, and was adjunct faculty at USC in the writing division of the School of Cinematic Arts. Neely has been writing film and television reviews for the “Easy Reader” for more than 10 years. Her past reviews can be read on Rotten Tomatoes where she is a tomatometer-approved critic.
