This will obviously be a massive oversimplification, but a major benefit of talk therapy is simply giving a person the space to talk through things. When we’re going about our lives, we often don’t have—or don’t take—the time to engage in any real introspection or to work through the sticky parts of the things that are causing us problems. But when we have some time to talk, and we can talk to someone who isn’t offering up judgment of what we’re saying, that can do a whole lot for us.
Talk to someone, or something. Like, say… a penguin. Stay with me: The Penguin Lessons is adapted from a memoir by a British man who took a job teaching English at a private school in Argentina in the early days of the military dictatorship. The teacher is played by Steve Coogan, who’s always skilled at portraying men who are mostly interested in themselves while also quietly loathing themselves, and here he’s clearly someone who’s trying to get far away from being bothered by life. One night, he meets a woman at a club, and while the two take a walk along the beach, they come upon a bunch of penguins who’ve been caught up in an oil spill, which has left most of them dead. One is alive, though, and in an attempt to impress the woman, Coogan takes it home and cleans it up, meaning once the woman departs, he’s the proud owner of a cute little penguin. That he really doesn’t want.
I was relieved that the movie basically treats the penguin like a penguin and not a cartoon character—it walks around and smells bad and poops and eats and is just a penguin. But Coogan finds himself talking to the creature simply because it’s around, and he confronts parts of himself that he almost certainly wouldn’t have acknowledged otherwise, including how he reacts to the authoritarian oppression around him. The administration at his school simply wants to avoid making waves, and it seems apparent this might have been the position Coogan would have taken, too, except that he now has this outlet for self-examination and his conscience won’t allow him to remain cowed in the face of a government that is disappearing people he knows off the streets. And while this aspect of the movie probably isn’t allowed to be as horrifying as the reality was, it does, at least, take it seriously. And, let’s be honest, it’s a movie about a guy who meets a penguin, and in that way, it generally succeeds—it’s not maudlin, it’ll please plenty of crowds, and it’s got a few things to tell us that we should probably listen to.
The Penguin Lessons is in theaters March 28th.
Correction: An earlier version of this review referred to the Argentinian military dictatorship as the "Pinochet regime." Augusto Pinochet was the dictator of Chile, not Argentina. The review has been updated.
