At this particular juncture in history, what are we meant to take from a film about a man politically radicalised by a penguin? It’s unclear – but still, The Penguin Lessons persists. And not only does the flightless bird at its centre melt the heart of a full-time cynic (logically played by Steve Coogan), but it inspires him to take (minor) action against the US-backed military dictatorship in Argentina, as it spreads terror through the so-called “Dirty War” of the late Seventies and early Eighties.
Anyone believed to be associated with socialism, communism, or any other left-wing ideology was targeted. An estimated 30,000 were killed or disappeared. The film’s desire to tackle these horrors without ever discomforting its audience doesn’t play here as gentle entreaty – certainly not in the way its director Peter Cattaneo previously balanced social realism and feel-good, underdog victory in The Full Monty (1997). It plays, instead, like moral negligence.
