I hope this becomes the new movie IP. 2 years: 2 movies with loving curmudgeonly old actors becoming friends with a penguin in South America. Jean Reno made his Penguin Friend last year, inspiring Steve Coogan to jet to Argentina and learn his own Penguin Lessons. The movie bullseyes exactly what you expect based on its title, so if that alone perks you up like it did for me, leave right now for sardonic British quips around an adorable animal.
Coogan plays Tom Michell, a British professor recruited by the headmaster (Jonathan Pryce) to teach at a private Argentinian school for rich kids. At this time, these kids are the children of the ruling class, causing great pain during the military coup in the country. As such, Tom is instructed “no politics” and keeps his head down. During a populist uprising, the school closes for a week, meaning vacation for Tom to Uruguay. While trying to hookup with the beautiful women there, he finds a poor penguin covered in oil, and cleans it up. His paramore (Micaela Breque) has to go, leaving Tom stuck with this penguin he has no choice but to raise in his little apartment. Hmm, I wonder if the bad students might pay more attention with the cutest animal of all time in the room?
The success of The Penguin Lessons is due to the broad understanding of it’s main character. Steve Coogan was always going to make his lines funny: director Peter Cattaneo knows this too. As such, him and Jeff Pope the writer broadly make the goings on around Tom much more serious, amplifying the power of the jokes. There’s a great runner in here about how reluctantly motivated Tom is to care for this penguin. He looks for easy outs everywhere he goes, but is beset on all sides by suspicious powerful people thinking he’s pulling one over on them. Tom’s also extremely checked out, and doing a lazy job trying to get rid of this bird that doubly makes him untrustworthy. Watching Coogan get more and more British exasperated as he tries to spin a half assed web of lies and realize he’s losing gets funnier and funnier with each latest “scam.”
This understanding works both directions, but the other way emotionally. With the chaos of the world around him, Coogan plays Tom emotionally shut down, content to drift through life after some horrible life experiences. But the penguin and Argentina’s tumultuous circumstances slowly draw him out. Yes there’s a bit of a white savior thing here, but Tom’s at least learning from the Argentinian citizens that caring is good, and even pain sometimes. The best scene of the movie is wordless, as all the droll penguin moments take a left turn at an event in the main city square. That’s the moment Tom turns back on, and the movie proves it can be more than just a droll exercise to spend 2 hours with a penguin.
As far as I’m concerned, we’re now 2 for 2 on old man & a penguin movies. Let’s try nail the trilogy everyone! We can go something like Ricardo Darin in a retirement home on the water, and a penguin washes ashore he has to take care of. Taika Waititi can do a Life of Pi thing with a Penguin going on adventures. Or my personal favorite: Al Pacino visits Southern Australia and stumbles upon a penguin breeding scheme and has to save the birds from being trafficked. That movie’s insane, and will either be incredible or a dumpster fire, both acceptable to me.