With an international cast led by Briton Steve Coogan, "The Full Monty" director Peter Cattaneo tells the story of a teacher who rescues a penguin during the 1976 military coup in Argentina.
"Penguins only have one mate. When they lose their mate, they never look for another," a student tells his English teacher, Tom Michell (Steve Coogan), during a pivotal moment in the comedy-drama "The Penguin Lessons."
Director: Peter Cattaneo
Writers: Jeff Pope, Tom Michell
Stars: Steve Coogan, Björn Gustafsson, David Herrero
Based on Michell's own memoir of the same name, the film adaptation tells how a lovable penguin finds a new mate: a volatile but charming Briton haunted by his tragic past. This penguin, named Juan Salvador, brings anthropomorphized hope to Michell and the elite St. George's College in Buenos Aires, where he teaches the children of wealthy Latin American families during a time of intense political unrest. The real-life Michell immediately took a shine to the oil-soaked penguin that washed up on the beach. But the film version of Michell is reluctant, and after realizing that the rescue won't help him sleep with the woman who inspired his heroic actions, he repeatedly tries to get rid of the bird.
But just when the slippery tapping of Juan Salvador's webbed feet as he moves forward can't stop viewers from loving him, Michell changes his mind. Juan Salvador and Steve Coogan (yes, penguin, human, in that order) make a couple worth watching. Over time, the Magellanic penguin wins the hearts and minds of the entire school, becoming a confidant, an emotional support animal, and yes, even a teaching assistant (well, sort of) in a school struggling to deal with the implications of the new military regime.
The film is peppered with delightful comic relief. Coogan's deadpan seriousness leads a cast that generally delivers: from the bored principal played by veteran actor Jonathan Pryce, dressed as a British Colonel Sanders, to Bjorn Gustaffsson's disconsolate, verbose professor, who treats Juan Salvador as his psychologist, to the witty grandmother and cleaner, cleverly played by Vivian El Jaber.
"The idea of making a cute penguin movie didn't really interest me," Cattaneo said during the Q&A session following the film's Toronto premiere. "Writing the balance between comedy and pathos seemed like a great tension that could be really exciting." However, the balance between comedy and pathos is notably lacking, and the decision to use the tumult of the military coup to fuel its historically diluted attempts at pathos is misguided.
The film's aesthetic interest goes largely unnoticed. Its interest lies in how the scenes unfold like a series of vignettes, shifting from stillness to hysteria in an instant. There's something about having to perform opposite a real penguin that seems to force the actors to sink even deeper into the present, to listen a little more, to grasp the fundamentals of acting: to react. (At the film's TIFF premiere, Cattaneo commented that he used one lead penguin named Ricard, swapping them out with others when necessary, in consultation with the French penguin keepers.) But the film's overall mundaneness—from the predictable script to the unremarkable cinematography and production design—prevents it from fully taking advantage of this heightened sense of presence.
That is until the very end, when the film closes with a poetic overhead shot by cinematographer Xavi Giménez that positions Michell as the focal point on a diagonal between the school community and his beloved penguin, Juan Salvador. It's the most effective image for revealing how he's elevated each of his experiences to something larger than themselves. “Penguins only have one mate. When they lose their mate, they never look for another,” a student tells his English teacher, Tom Michell (Steve Coogan), during a pivotal moment in the comedy-drama “The Penguin Lessons.”
Based on Michell’s own memoir of the same name, the film adaptation tells the story of how a lovable penguin finds a new mate: a volatile but charming Briton haunted by his tragic past. This penguin, named Juan Salvador, brings anthropomorphized hope to Michell and the elite St. George’s College boarding school in Buenos Aires, where he teaches the children of wealthy Latin American families during a time of intense political unrest.
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