The 1976 military coup in Argentina, and the ongoing period of violence and forced disappearances that led up to it, don’t provide an obvious historical backdrop for a poignant story about the bond between man and animal. But that’s how it was for Tom Mitchell, an English teacher at an elite private school in Buenos Aires, at a time of turmoil: With the country in chaos and many of his colleagues in crisis, he was trying to figure out what to do with the Magellanic penguin he had accidentally adopted on a weekend trip to Uruguay. His 2016 memoir of that period, Penguin Lessons, was the kind of delightful way that bridges adult and child tastes for animal stories; Peter Cattaneo’s film adaptation of the novel fits the book’s feathery whimsy while reaching for a little more political significance. It’s almost inevitable that it’s better when it comes to the bird.
While Michel was in his 20s at the time of the events he describes in his book, this adaptation, written by screenwriter Jeff Pope (“Philomena”), has been reimagined as a vehicle for Pope’s frequent collaborator, the 58-year-old Steve Coogan—with some dark background to explain why an Englishman of that age would spend his days adrift in South America. It’s a change that shifts the tone of the entire narrative in a more somber, though still watchable, direction, now leaning slightly toward the gray audience. Coogan brings a familiar air of deadpan cynicism, while Cattaneo (in one of his best outings since earning an Oscar nomination for “The Full Monty” nearly 27 years ago) mixes broad comedic beats with a soothing dose of yellow pathos.
But you can sense the strange difference in tone between the two scenes, as Coogan’s Michel—dressed in the obligatory 1970s school uniform of corduroy jacket, trousers and suede desert boots, all in varying shades of sauce—arrives with a bemused, sullen face at the gates of his exclusive, forbidding new workplace, to find workers spray-painting the high exterior walls with “fascist bastards.” There’s a muffled crackle of gunfire and explosions in the distance; Michel is mostly annoyed that he’s gotten a splatter of paint on his shoe. “We try to stay away from all that,” says the school’s haughty headmaster, Buckle (Jonathan Pryce), as he welcomes the new teacher, emphasizing the importance of “the small print” when it comes to politics. His narrow authority is used ironically, though Penguin Lessons is not about to become terribly revolutionary in its own right.
The action begins with light comedy as Michel settles into his home: struggling to connect with the rowdy boys in his class, juggling two reluctant duties as a desperate rugby coach, and forming a prickly bond with his serious, sarcasm-hating Finnish classmate Michel (Björn Gustafsson). Any political context is filled in by the school’s tough-but-golden-hearted maid Maria (Vivian El Jaber) and her granddaughter Sofia (Alfonsina Carusio), who are more directly affected than these European outsiders by the turmoil of Argentina’s Dirty War. When the coup d’état occurs, it’s pushed into the background, and Michel treats it as just the impetus for a short, fun escape to Uruguay, where he tries to impress a girl for a night and rescues a penguin from an oil spill on the beach.
His goal is simply to clean the bird—whom he quickly names Juan Salvador—and return it to its natural habitat. But Juan Salvador refuses to leave his annoying savior’s side, and gets a ticket back to Argentina in a duffel bag. The hilarious stuff then begins as Michel tries to hide his unusual new pet from border guards and then from school authorities, though Juan Salvador is too charming to stay hidden for long. Soon he’s in the classroom, inducing a Dead Poets Society-style transformation when Michel, the newly hired penguin, deviates from the curriculum to include anti-war poetry, and his students are suddenly mesmerized. The penguin’s power is immense, and to be fair, Juan Salvador is played by a very talented avian actor that we’re willing to believe.
This is an entertaining film, well served by Coogan’s knack for maintaining a haughty calm in the face of absurdity. But it becomes less compelling when it reaches the realm of tragedy. Sofia’s kidnapping by the junta is too serious an incident to be relegated to a subplot behind more cheerful seabird material, and Coogan can’t quite sell his character’s deep reserves of sadness. Michel’s eventual violation of school rules by intervening in politics should be more exciting, but given how the film avoids showing the more violent aftermath of the coup, the stakes don’t feel as high as they should. If you can put the devastation out of sight and focus instead on the wonders of Juan Salvador, “Penguin Lessons” will enthrall you—though, true to its modest charm, it never aims to soar.
