THE PENGUIN LESSONS were delivered on film in 2025, with Peter Cattaneo directing a screenplay from Jeff Pope. The lessons were first laid out in a 240-page memoir published ten years earlier by Tom Michell, recalling his experiences 40 years back in mid-1970’s Argentina.

“The penguin is not a communist.”

Buenos Aires, 1976. Brit ex-pat Tom Mitchell (Steve Coogan) gets hired to teach English and poetry and maybe coach rugby to the rowdy lads at exclusive St. George’s College. He’s not a happy camper to start with, and is further dismayed by the boys bratty attitudes and behaviors. On a beach escape to Uruguay, Tom and a woman he meets at a club rescue a penguin from an oil slick, the sole survivor of its colony. Hooking up with ‘Carina’ (a nice turn from Micaela Breque) doesn’t pan out, but the critter refuses to go back to the sea, and follows Tom like a homing pigeon, er, penguin. He takes ‘Juan Salvador’ back to his apartment and then to school. The students are amused, the Headmaster ( Jonathan Pryce) isn’t. Tom and his problematic pal bond with housekeeper ‘Maria Alvarez’ (Vivian El Jeber, 60) and her granddaughter ‘Sofia’ (Alfonsina Carrocio, age?, in the script she’s nineteen). That’s all well and good, except for the salient fact that Argentina is under a right-wing military dictatorship: Sofia is a leftist (as in humane and democratic), and the brutally repressive government knows who talks to whom about what, when & where. Tom’s avoid-trouble philosophy and fear of commitment faces harsher truths and tougher choices than what fish to feed his pet.

Filmed in Argentina, Uruguay and Spain, released enough to make $13,609,000 internationally, the humanity pulse check is funny, touching and relatable (not the singular fowl, but the collective foul, as in rampant fascism—seen any lately?) the on-its-face absurdity of Tom’s turf battle with a bereft and bereaved bird juxtaposed with “the decision that all men in all times must face…the eternal choice of men…to endure oppression or to resist.” *

The basics are real, Tom’s job, the bird, the school, the time, place and situation. For dramatic purposes, some characters were invented and or/disguised and Tom at the time was 23, Coogan during filming was 58. He underplays beautifully, in the third time that he’s collaborated with screenwriter Pope, following grade-A winners, also-fact-based, Philomena and Stan & Ollie.

El Jeber and Carrocio excel as the ensnared housekeepers/citizens and there is a chilly scene with Ramiro Blas as a casually cruel secret policeman. In the guise of a low-key comedy (oh, Juan Salvador is two real penguins and one robot) the 112 minutes touch deeper than simple taps on the funny bone. So, now what must do we do?

* We swipe the line out of the prologue from 1960’s The Alamo. Some will think “huh?” My friends will smile.

On the subject of releasing into the wild, this swam into competition with My Penguin Friend, which came out a year earlier and was likewise based on a true story.