Director: Peter Cattaneo
Starring: Steve Coogan, Jonathan Pryce, Vivian El Jaber, Björn Gustafsson
Certificate: 12A
Run Time: 112 mins

The Penguin Lessons is a comedy-drama directed by Peter Cattaneo, best known for The Full Monty, based on a 2015 memoir by Tom Michell. Michell was a British teacher who taught at a boys’ boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s, during the escalating coup d’état and after he goes on a trip with fellow science teacher Tapio (Björn Gustafsson) to Uruguay for a week, he comes back with a penguin, which he finds covered in oil on a beach that he can’t get rid of and the two form a strong bond. Steve Coogan plays the English teacher and the film’s script is written by Jeff Pope, who wrote the excellent Philomena, which Coogan also starred in.

This is a rousing film with an excellent central Steve Coogan performance and his winning relationship with the penguin gives the film a strong emotional core. Pope’s sharp script gives Coogan plenty of opportunities with lots of wit – the film definitely wouldn’t work as well as it does without Coogan. Although this feel-good memoir succeeds on the buddy narrative, it struggles with the haunting political subtext which is rather glossed over. This is especially unfortunate given the recent release of the Oscar-winning I’m Still Here, which tackles eerily similar political themes with far more depth and emotion.

Despite the odd, but true events, Cattaneo’s film resorts to a predictable Hollywood structure with the typical heartwarming comedy story beats. But even though you can see most of the beats coming, the film does just enough to keep things fresh with Coogan’s performance and the various warm character relationships he has in the film. Vivian El Jaber is excellent as Maria, one of the housekeepers whose granddaughter, Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio) is an activist who is at risk of getting into trouble with the Argentine authorities, and I really bought the relationship between them and Coogan’s teacher. And it’s always refreshing to see Jonathan Pryce in a film, who brings a twinkle to the stern, but impenetrable Headmaster of the boarding school.

Although familiar in its construction and flawed in that it glosses over what was a disturbing part of Argentina geopolitical history, I still found a lot to like in The Penguin Lessons. Coogan really carries the film and the bond his teacher forms with the penguin is an effective metaphor for the more troubling historical backdrop, as well as a good serving of wry writ of Jeff Pope’s script.