Filmmakers are reading each other’s email again.
Just last August, we were graced with My Penguin Friend: a thoroughly enchanting drama, based on actual events, about how a Brazilian fisherman saved the life of an oil-covered penguin in the spring of 2011, after which the bird bonded with him.
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| The initially hopeless teacher/pupil dynamic shifts suddenly when Tom (Steve Coogan) impulsively brings his penguin companion to class. |
Director Peter Cattaneo and scripter Jeff Pope have taken a few liberties. Michell is played by 59-year-old actor/comedian Steve Coogan, who certainly can’t be termed naïve or unsophisticated. Sidebar characters have been added here and there, and the political context has been amplified in a manner that more pointedly mirrors current events throughout the world.
But the saga’s heart remains front and center, along with an aw-shucks level of cuteness ... but Cattaneo ensures that the tone never becomes mawkishly sentimental.
Coogan also supplies plenty of dry humor, delivered with his impeccable timing; his sarcastic one-liners are even funnier when contrasted with his bleak, deadpan expression.
The disillusioned Michell, carrying tragic baggage eventually revealed, arrives in Buenos Aires to teach at a prestigious boarding school that caters exclusively to the Very Wealthy. He’s greeted by sharp and severe Headmaster Buckle (Jonathan Pryce, appropriately stuffy), who insists on punctuality in all manners, and cautions that any discussion of politics should be approached with a small “p.”
That’s wise advice, because Tom — who expected an easy assignment — is chagrined to find the city in turmoil, with soldiers patrolling everywhere, and citizens understandably on edge. (Isabel Perón is shortly to be ousted via a military coup.)
Worse yet, Tom is chagrined to discovered that wealthy Argentinian boys are just as obnoxious as their British counterparts. Diego (David Herrero), Ernesto (Aimar Miranda) and Ramiro (Hugo Fuertes) are the stand-outs, with the most dramatic business.
Tom can’t begin to obtain control in his classroom, and his tendency to quote highbrow poetry and aphorisms doesn’t help.
His initial encounter with the school’s hard-of-hearing cook and cleaner, María (Vivian El Jaber) also goes poorly, much to the amusement of her adult granddaughter, Sofía (Alfonsina Carrocio), who works alongside her.
Tom’s sole ray of sunshine is erudite, Finnish-born fellow instructor Tapio (Björn Gustafsson), who — although intelligent and convivial — is hilariously incapable of understanding irony or sarcasm. As are Tom’s students.
At one point Tom abandons the classroom entirely, for an afternoon siesta on an outside bench. He chances to overhear an argument between Sofía and the local fishmonger: a young man with revolution on his mind.
A few weeks into the term, Tom and Tapio travel to a beach resort in Uruguay’s Punta del Este, hoping to meet some, ah, accommodating ladies. Tom seems to get lucky with Carina (Micaela Breque, gentle and warm), but their encounter concludes unexpectedly. A final companionable walk along the beach turns tragic when they encounter a massive oil spill that has covered a lengthy stretch of sand, laden with the corpses of hundreds of dead Magellan penguins.
Except for one, barely alive.
Tom and Carina take it back to his hotel room, and clean it in the tub. But his subsequent efforts to return the bird to the sea are fruitless; the penguin waddles back onto the sand each time, refusing to be left behind. Coogan’s long-suffering sighs and slumped shoulders merely make the situation funnier, and Cattaneo has great fun with close-up penguin reaction shots. Heck, merely watching the bird move is hilarious.
Finally resigned to the inevitable, and unwilling to abandon the penguin to an uncertain fate, Tom smuggles it back into Argentina, and onto school grounds. By this point, he has named it Juan Salvador (the Spanish version of the title character in Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull).
Tom knows that Headmaster Buckle never would tolerate a feathered interloper, but the penguin’s inopportune squawks and chirps make him difficult to hide ... not to mention the frequent deposits of guano. Keeping him concealed becomes a cheerful conspiracy between Tom, Tapio, Maria and Sofía, who bond over their clandestine companion.
As for Tom’s trouble with his pupils, he impulsively brings Juan Salvador to class.
“If you keep him secret,” he promises, “you can feed him after class.”
Just like that, everything changes.
Unfortunately, politics with a very capital “P” also intrudes.
Cattaneo and Pope likely felt that dramatic tension was needed, to prevent their film from becoming a penguin love-fest; in fairness, they handle the balance quite well. Given a résumé that includes 1997’s The Full Monty and television’s recent Magpie Murders miniseries, Cattaneo is skilled at blending character drama with the infamously dry British wit, and Coogan is a master at the latter.
(The actual Michell’s book has no dramatic tension; the penguin immediately bonded with everybody at the school, and became a beloved mascot of all the teachers and pupils, and a constant presence in classrooms and at rugby matches. But that’s too “ordinary” for big-screen treatment.)
El Jaber is terrific as the initially arch, no-nonsense Maria, who thaws almost immediately after meeting Juan Salvador. Carrocio’s Sofía is charming, effervescent and bubbling with the carefree spirit of youth; she’s also cautious, as events outside the school become more combustible.
Juan Salvador is played by two penguins, Baba and Richard, who spent weeks getting comfortable with Coogan, and vice-versa.
“They disarm you,” he comments, in the film’s press notes. “Human beings are too inward-looking and preoccupied with things that aren’t important. These birds remind you not to take everything so seriously.”
Cattaneo and Pope build their film to a third act with not just one, but two emotional gut-punches. (Have plenty of Kleenex handy.)
Getting there, though, is beyond charming. Penguins truly are the most awkwardly adorable of God’s creatures.
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