Penguin Lessons – Film Review

I’m a sucker for movies with feelgood interactions between animals and humans, where the pets or creatures become loyal friends and even life changers for those they bond with.

I’m also a fan of Irish/English actor Steve Coogan and enjoy his dry and sarcastic humour (I’m Alan Partridge, The Full Monty, Philomena). So, off I went to Penguin Lessons …

Inspired by a true story and based on Tom Michell’s 2015 memoir Penguin Lessons, the movie is directed by The Full Monty filmmaker, Peter Cattaneo.

The story unfolds in 1976, just as Isabel Peron is being ousted in a military coup, the bloodiest period of Argentina’s history. A period of widespread repression and disappearances, when approximately 30,000 Argentinians were captured, tortured and disappeared. The period between 1976 and 1983 was known as The Dirty War.

Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) plays a longhaired, disillusioned English teacher working in an elite boy’s boarding school in Buenos Aires. Tom is told that politics should be approached with a small “p”. He wears desert boots, and a selection of beige and mustard coloured jackets and does his best to avoid the political chaos of the time.

While on holiday in Uruguay he recues a Magellanic penguin from an oil slick on a beach at Punta del Esta. After unsuccessful attempts to return the penguin to the ocean, Tom smuggles it back on a ferry to Argentina in a shopping bag. Pets are banned at St. George’s School. The penguin secretly lives with Tom in his apartment at the school, stays in the bathroom at night and on his balcony during the day. Tom is a deeply lonely man who finds an unexpected friendship and companionship with his feathered friend.

During English class, the teenage boys don’t pay attention and fly paper aeroplanes and put a pin on Tom’s seat. He finally takes the penguin into his English class; the boys christened it Juan Salvador (Spanish version of Jonathon Living Seagull). The class scenes become a little like those in the movie Dead Poet’s Society, with the boys lying on the floor during English class to see things from a penguin’s perspective and Tom using poetry to teach resistance.

The penguin helps Tom, his students, colleagues and staff to examine trapped emotions. Before long, everyone starts confiding in Juan Salvador, and the way he cocks his head and looks at them, it honestly feels as if he is listening. Even the grumpy headmaster, played brilliantly by Jonathan Pryce, falls for the penguin.

The true star in this heart-warming story is Juan Salvador, the lovable pint-sized penguin, who transforms the lives of all he meets. There is great acting by Steve Coogan — who manages to portray acts of kindness and hope during a dark period in Argentinian history.

I score Penguin Lessons 7.5/10.

Penguin Lessons opens 12 April 2025 at Luna Cinemas.

By Jean Hudson

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