The Penguin Lessons

The Penguin Lessons is a charmer: a warmer of cockles, a tugger of heartstrings, even a jerker of tears if you’re not careful. And while it may in hindsight seem a little over-engineered to do all those things, that doesn’t dampen the effect. People’s Choice material or not, I loved it.

If audiences expecting a cute penguin movie are forced to engage with the fact that any government which abducts people for having different political views is evil, and that everyone must do everything in their power to stop that miscarriage of justice, then nobody can say 'The Penguin Lessons' isn’t at the very least well-timed.

Anyone just expecting a cutesy animal romp may be sorely disappointed, but that’s because this isn’t about the quietly expansive inner life of Juan Salvador.

While Juan Salvador is a shameless exhibitionist, Coogan’s performance is understated; he conveys Tom’s softening without nudging the viewer too much.

In its determination to maintain a glossy, upbeat tone throughout — even when dealing with an event that, as a final sombre title card tells us, saw ‘over 30,000 people killed or disappeared’ — The Penguin Lessons proves to be neither fish nor fowl.

Yes, it’s ostensibly sweet and inoffensive. But it’s so inoffensive that it’s almost, well, offensive.

Based on a 2016 memoir by Tom Mitchell, “The Penguin Lessons” wants to be a thoughtful light entertainment about ideals and courage, but ends up seeming grotesquely misguided.

Inspired by a true story, that is the vital and appealing point of the film, which manages to be more than just another feel-good movie, and that credit goes to Steve Coogan. Just what you need for a Saturday afternoon.

Cute, funny movie. It's definitely got a Dead Poets Society vibe. I enjoyed it a lot.

There’s an old expression in show business that advises entertainers not to work with children or animals because they’ll upstage them every time. But, while that’s often true, it’s not always the case, as seen in the latest feature offering from director Peter Cattaneo. This charming comedy-drama tells the fact-based story of English teacher Tom Michell (Steve Coogan), who somewhat begrudgingly takes an instructor’s job at St. George’s College, a prestigious boarding school in Buenos Aires, just before the 1976 Argentine revolution. The cynical, curmudgeonly teacher has moved around a lot, and he’s not particularly thrilled at this latest stop, as becomes apparent in his classroom demeanor and overarching attitude. Not long after his arrival, when a military coup d’etat hits that overthrows the government, he decides to get out of town until the dust settles. He embarks on an impromptu vacation to a Uruguayan resort town, where he meets a beautiful, flirtatious woman, Carina (Mica Breque), in a nightclub. That encounter subsequently leads to a late night walk along the beach, but, while on this stroll, they find a penguin that’s barely alive and covered in oil, a victim of a recent spill. To impress his would-be one-nighter, Tom and Carina take the bird back to his hotel to clean it up. What Tom doesn’t realize, however, is that the penguin, who would subsequently come to be named Juan Salvador, has made its unwitting rescuer its friend for life, despite his repeated efforts to return it to the wild. It’s a prospect the professor doesn’t especially relish, but, upon returning to Argentina with penguin in tow, man and bird become the unlikeliest of friends, under prevailing conditions both at the school and in the country at large that prove threatening (but unexpectedly beneficial) to both. At first glance, one might think this sounds like a cutesy, schmaltzy, manipulative tale a la Disney, but far from it. The picture tells a sincerely engaging story of personal growth and the emergence of personal courage, brought about by the influence of an improbable feathered mentor in a tense social and political environment that has both Tom and virtually the entire Argentine population on edge. It’s also a tale the defies the timeless cautionary adage about casting decisions involving both man and beast, with Juan Salvador being just as much a member of the ensemble as his human counterparts. Admittedly, the film has a little trouble finding its footing in the opening act, but, once it does, it’s a delightful and touching release that’s moving without being drenched in saccharin. “The Penguin Lessons” is also one of those movies that needs to be seen to be believed, as the trailer truly doesn’t do it justice. Indeed, this is one of those heartfelt, uplifting stories that the world needs more of at a time when we could all use a little inspiration to help see us through the tough times.

(Mauro Lanari) 6½ "Bent to the prevailing conformism of the school where he went to teach, [Michell], thanks to Juan Salvador, becomes an invitation not to resign oneself to the quiet life... rekindling the spirit of breaking the mold" (Giancarlo Zappoli). The penguin is named after the seagull protagonist of Richard Bach's 1970 bestseller in its Latin American edition: "Juan Salvador Gaviota." Personally, I found it a far cry from both that book and "Dead Poets Society" (Weir, 1989). A mantle of melancholy shrouds the movie: the bird acts as a transitional object that receives, without providing answers and much less solutions, confessions of personal dramas, powerlessness, failures, traumas, and crises, like a surrealist figure in a painful choral narrative devoid of catharsis. Coogan's British humor makes it even more jarring, anyone seeking a message of political engagement or even a merely uplifting one will be disappointed, and it's entirely atypical for an A24 production.

A edição deste longa é muito estranha, uma montagem que deve ter sofrido pra oferecer coesão ao todo, e ainda conta com uma história pra lá de piegas e uma forçada de barra pra fazer do pinguim símbolo de resistência à ditadura argentina (!). Salva aqui ser baseada em uma história real e ter algo bem escondido de "Sociedade dos poetas mortos", que até é bem vindo pra uma geração que está fazendo ressurgir, dos escombros, o fascismo. Mas é muito pouco, e o filme no geral é bem brega.