Showing On 25, 27, 28 August
Monday 6:00pm, Wednesday 4:00pm and 6:30pm, Thursday 6:00pm
Watch The Trailer
Storyline (warning: spoilers)
The Penguin Lessons is a throwback to roughly thirty years ago, when small-scale, heartwarming comedies about plucky outsiders made tons of money for art house theatres. It’s even directed by Peter Cattaneo, whose comedy about amateur male strippers The Full Monty was such a hit that it spun off a Broadway musical. There won’t be a Broadway musical based on The Penguin Lessons unless a real life version of one of the tap-dancing penguins from the Happy Feet movies is willing to move to New York—and that’s for the best.
The Penguin Lessons Is about a mopey, mentally checked-out teacher named Michell (Steve Coogan) at a boys’ private school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who evolves as a person in response to a right-wing military dictatorship taking over the country. But that’s not what this movie is actually about. It’s a softhearted, softheaded work that piles a lot of overly familiar elements into a single film, including “bloody upheaval in a developing country as experienced by a privileged white foreigner who’s isolated from the worst of it”; “detached cynic has moral awakening” and “sad, unpleasant guy becomes nicer after taking care of someone, or something.”
There’s also a subplot about a friend of Michell’s who is involved in an underground movement to resist the military takeover of Argentina and suffers for it (apparently this is not in the book). To avoid specifics, let’s say the government skullduggery gets Michell directly involved in Argentinean life and challenges him to get over a past trauma and stand up for the people he cares about. For more about this era, watch any one of the many thoughtful dramatic films about the Dirty War, including the 2021 drama Azor. Just don’t expect penguins.
The filmmakers do a creditable job of cutting together shots of the human cast and closeups of the penguin turning its head or squawking (likely in reaction to someone waving a fish off-camera) so that the bird appears to be interacting with humans.