Peter Cattaneo, “The Penguin Lessons” (2024)
At first this film appears no more than a light, gentle comedy about a teacher upstaged by a penguin. In 1976, disillusioned teacher Tom Michell washes up in Argentina to take up a position teaching English and coaching rugby at an exclusive boys’ school. Though befriending his cleaning lady Maria (Vivian El Jaber) and her granddaughter Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio) who happens to be a political activist, and finding a fair bit in common with the otherwise socially awkward science teacher Tapio (Björn Gustafsson), Tom finds things hard going at the school, as the boys in his class are unruly and disruptive. A terrorist bombing forces the school to close for a week so Tom and Tapio spend the time partying in Punta del Este in Uruguay, where Tom later strikes up a friendship with a woman at a dance club. While walking along a beach, the couple come across a group of dying Magellanic penguins in an oil slick. They find one poor creature still alive and they take it back to Tom’s hotel room to clean it up.
The woman later dumps Michell, and after trying to return the penguin to the ocean, Tom eventually ends up taking it back to St George’s College after sneaking it past customs in Uruguay and Argentina. He tries everything he can to get rid of the penguin, since the school doesn’t allow staff to keep pets, but decides to keep the penguin in the end after discovering horrid living conditions for animals at the city zoo. Maria and Sofia are charmed by the bird and christen it Juan Salvador. Seeing the effect the penguin has on the two women, Tom decides to take the penguin to his classes. The penguin ends up changing the relationship between the teacher and the students: Tom starts bonding more with the boys and the boys become more attentive and studious, and less noisy and disruptive.
Eventually Juan Salvador becomes something of an open secret within the school, though the boys and Tapio keep the penguin’s existence a secret. The penguin’s role within the school expands to that of unpaid therapist, as Tom, Maria, Tapio and even the headmaster (Jonathon Pryce), after initially dismissing Tom for having a pet, end up having long conversations with it by pouring out all their troubles. In the meantime, the environment outside the school becomes more menacing, as Argentina falls under military junta rule, and people, including Sofia and the fishmonger who supplies seafood to the school, are being arrested for their political activism. Sofia’s arrest in front of Tom pushes the teacher into a moral dilemma over whether he should get involved in Maria and Sofia’s affairs and risk arrest, even disappearance, himself or walk away and pretend he didn’t see anything.
The light comedy involved in Tom sneaking a penguin into his school is balanced by the more sinister activity around the school that eventually infiltrates it and claims victims. Through Juan Salvador, Tom discovers a new purpose in life and makes new connections with people, and he begins to live rather than merely survive after suffering personal tragedy including the death of a child and the break-up of his marriage. He discovers that he does have courage after all, courage enough to confront Sofia’s kidnappers – and suffer the consequences. Other characters in the film are also energised by the penguin’s presence: the boys in particular begin to grasp concepts such as freedom and social justice in the lessons Tom gives. It seems fitting (though of course bittersweet sad) that, once everyone at St George’s College has been transformed by Juan Salvador’s presence, the bird should pass on into its next phase of life.
Beneath the hokey plot of an unlikely friendship and equally unlikely catalyst for personal redemption and social transformation lies a message about committing oneself to life and connection to others, and having responsibility for them especially when they are being menaced for protesting against injustice or when they most need to know what having freedom and political rights means for themselves personally and for the society at large. Steve Coogan’s understated playing of his role helps to drive this message home, lifting “The Penguin Lessons” out of light fluffy comedy fare and into not-too heavy commentary on an individual’s place in a repressive society.