City Cinema: The Penguin Lessons

Drama.
PG, mild language.
Dir: Peter Cattaneo.
UK/Spain, 2024, 112 min.
Steve Coogan, Vivian El Jaber, Jonathan Pryce.

“Here’s an unexpected charmer, a true story based on a popular autobiographical memoir about a man and a penguin, with a lightness of tone that doesn’t overdo the whimsy. The excellent Steve Coogan plays Tom Michell, a cynical and disillusioned British writer and scholar who accepted a job in 1976 teaching proper English, poetry and soccer in an upscale boys’ prep school in Buenos Aires at the height of Argentina’s postwar military dictatorship. Intelligently directed by Peter Cattaneo, the man best remembered for The Full Monty, the stressful anecdotes Michell endures make the job of winning over both the unruly, rebellious students and the stern, humorless headmaster a taxing challenge… Things pick up when Michell accidentally rescues a penguin from a near-fatal oil slick, and the little bird repays him by following him halfway across South America. The poor English teacher, who hates birds and has no need for a pet anyway, is stuck with a feathered friend he can’t get rid of. It wins him over like a Disney duck in spite of himself, and I’m willing to bet the same thing happens to you… The Penguin Lessons is a work of surprising depth and subtle, irresistible impact.” —Rex Reed, Observer