REVIEW #40: THE PENGUIN LESSONS – THE HUMOROUS AND THE HATEFUL IN OUR HUMANITY

The Penguin Lessons
Script by Jeff Pope
Based on the Book by Tom Michell
Directed by Peter Cattaneo
2024    112mins

AN UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP!

Don’t be fooled by the title, or the charming and comical expectations of a movie with a penguin in it. Yes, it was funny – though I suspect I found it funnier than all the other movie-goers. That may be because I was an English teacher and found some of the allusions to famous writers hysterical. Some of the transitions between scenes were also hysterical without even needing words, such as when the protagonist appears in the scene after some bizarre bartering over a shoehorn, wearing the tangerine-coloured socks he received in exchange, confirming that things were, indeed, not normal on any level in Argentina in the 1970’s. During that period, people were kidnapped off the streets in full view of all citizens and tangerine socks were seen as a desirable commodity for an English teacher who needed to spend his wages immediately, or risk them being devalued at a faster rate than he could spend them. Another comical moment was when Tom returns from a night in the lock-up to find his no-nonsense, inflexible, headmaster sitting on his balcony uncharacteristically pouring his heart out about being misunderstood to . . . the penguin. I guess you had to be there! Suffice to say that there are no shortage of opportunities to laugh in this movie.

However, there are almost as many opportunities to shed tears of frustration and helplessness at the plight of those who are bullied, or lose a loved one, or miraculously have a lost loved one returned, or discover what it is like to stop drifting through life on the path of least resistance and decide to stand for something, no matter what the consequences of their courage might be. Then there are the challenges to humanity to clean up our act with regard to the way we treat the environment and especially the creatures in it. Through it all, in multiple contexts, we are challenged to question the status quo and find new ways to tackle our problems instead of shrugging it off with the coward’s justification: That’s the way it is. There’s nothing we can do about it.

I highly recommend this film. Don’t mistake it for a children’s movie. It is a serious movie reflecting on serious issues, but the humour helps to open us up and prevent us drowning in the shame and guilt of seeing how low people can go. Moreover, it is a reminder to us that when others go low, we need to go high and not let ourselves be dragged down to a debased morality that is unworthy of our humanity, and brings no honour to our Creator. More often than not that takes real courage. Like life itself, this is a messy, mottley patchwork of humanity’s flaws, frailties and failures with the accidental, and sometimes intentional, heroic moments when people rally and discover something noble within them with which to fight evil, or simply find within themselves the spirit to carry on through the mundane and the madness that surrounds us.