The Penguin Lessons
May 19, 2025
When we went to the Sunday afternoon matinee, attended by the senior set, the Film Society president spoke briefly about upcoming programs and the current production, The Penguin Lessons. “Has anyone read the book,” Richard Paradise asked, assuming the answer was no. Joyce raised her hand. “You’re the first person who has read the book in the past two weeks the movie has been shown,” Richard said.
I’m not surprised. Joyce reads incessantly, morning, noon, and night, and sometimes deep into the night when I am deep in dreamland.
As a child, my mother read us Mr. Popper’s Penguins, (Richard and Florence Atwater, 1938), which, I recall, was about a clutch of penguins in the mid-west, and the Popper family raised them. Joyce read The Penguin Lessons (Tom Michell, 2015) several years ago; it was gift from a friend in England, and Joyce was determined to see the movie.
Sunday was busy. I had a cruise ship tour in Vineyard Haven. Joyce had to read in church. We wanted to power-wash the deck. I wanted to mow the lawn and wash the cars. It was that kind of day. Somehow, we managed to squeeze the movie into a very active afternoon.
It was a delight. Steve Coogan reenacted the true story of an English teacher in an Argentina boys’ school in 1976, when the country was undergoing political unrest. It was a dangerous era, and one that foreshadowed the fears of today’s political climate. That was not part of the book. The book dwelt with the shenanigans of Juan Salvador, a penguin rescued from an oil spill on the shore in Uruguay and harbored by Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) in his dormitory room.
The story is humorous and emotional. Both Joyce and I thought of our dog Kutter in our reactions to the high jinks the penguin got into. Eventually Michell brings the penguin into class and the boys quickly adopt a curious, supportive role. Adults in the movie find solace consulting the penguin on their issues. Young and old appreciate and learn from the penguin, yet the real survivor who was rescued was Tom Michell. Those are the Penguin Lessons.
Good movie. Fun Sunday afternoon.
Tom Dresser
PS - Appologies for today’s delay. Sometimes things happen.
