A disillusioned Englishman who goes to work in a school in a divided Argentina in 1976 finds his life transformed when he rescues an orphaned penguin from the beach.

As an animal lover it doesn’t take much to sell me on a film involving animals, so ‘The Penguin Lessons’ was always likely to find me in its target audience. Based on the memoir by Tom Michell, a British teacher who taught at a private boy’s school in Argentina during the military dictatorship, it tells the unlikely story of how he ended up with a pet penguin for a period of time. Starring Steve Coogan in the central role of Michell, on paper it’s an odd mix of cute animal humour and political drama, but in my admittedly biased view, it works better than it has any right to.

A large part of that is down to Steve Coogan who is perfectly cast, bringing his natural cynicism and acerbic wit to the character of Michell, who we are introduced to as a teacher who is mostly going through the motions after a series of jobs across South America. To a certain degree he is playing a version of himself, the grumpy cynic with a heart underneath (as we’ve seen in his other dramatic roles i.e. ‘Philomena’), but it works really well for this movie as that cynicism cuts across the undoubtedly cutesy moments with the penguin. The story of finding the penguin is the movie in microcosm, pretty funny but with a sad edge as the consequences of real world problems create the issue – something that the movie will touch on at several points.

‘The Penguin Lessons’ is an enjoyable movie with Steve Coogan at his best, helped along by a cute little penguin and a story set an interesting period of history, even as it doesn’t always get it right in trying to balance these two disparate elements.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Peter Cattaneo

Starring: Steve Coogan, Vivian El Jaber, Björn Gustafsson, David Herrero, Alfonsina Carrocio and Jonathan Pryce

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt26677014/