The Penguin Lessons
2024
Certificate 12A – DRAMA
Director: Peter Cattaneo
With Steve Coogan, Jonathan Pryce
Runtime: 111 mins
Disillusioned teacher Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) gets a job teaching English and Rugby in a school for rich kids in Buenos Aires. It’s 1976 and Argentina is controlled by a military dictatorship, but Tom is more interested in spending time on the beach than in either his pupils or the political situation. During a weekend trip to Uruguay he rescues an orphaned penguin and smuggles it back into the school, little suspecting that this is the beginning of a personal and political awakening.
WHY WATCH THIS FILM? For the penguin!
“Coogan spikes proceedings with his familiar air of deadpan irony, while Cattaneo (in one of his better outings since landing an Oscar nomination for The Full Monty nearly 27 years ago) mixes broad comic beats with a mollifying dose of yellow-filtered pathos.” Variety
“Cattaneo and Pope manage to balance the tone of a dramatic historical depiction of fascism with a charming animal story and their secret weapon is Coogan. His bone-dry delivery makes it so that the sour is never too sharp and the sentimental is never too syrupy.” Los Angeles Times
“Adapted from Tom Michell’s autobiographical book, The Penguin Lessons counters the inspirational teacher cliches with a bumbling charm that’s boosted considerably by a first-rate performance from the scene-stealing penguin. Peter Cattaneo directs, just about striking a balance between the fluffy sentimentality of the story and its hard-edged political backdrop.” The Guardian