Release of ‘The Penguin Lessons’ Offers a Chance To Extol the Many Virtues of Steve Coogan

The Museum of the Moving Image has been hosting a group of films under the rubric “Forever Snubbed,” a series that serves as an “anti-tribute to the Oscars by highlighting those films and figures who have never won the little golden guy.” The snarky tone may be off-putting, but MoMI’s lineup of snubbed movies is astonishing. Among the recent inclusions are “Carmen Jones” (1954), “3:10 to Yuma” (1957), “Don’t Look Now” (1973), “The Lady From Shanghai” (1947), and “Vertigo” (1958). Consider those achievements when mooting the pictures and performers honored at the recent Oscar ceremony.On the release of Peter Cattaneo’s “The Penguin Lessons,” let me take a moment to extol the virtues of a comedian and actor, Steve Coogan. Mr. Coogan’s career continues full bore, and he was nominated for an Oscar as a screenwriter on Stephen Frears’s “Philomena” (2013), but to this critic’s lights he was, if not forever snubbed by the Academy, then conspicuously overlooked. How on earth did its members miss Mr. Coogan’s turn as Stan Laurel in John S. Baird’s “Stan and Ollie” (2018)? The movie was, in many regards, a boilerplate biopic, but Mr. Coogan did more than exact an impersonation of a beloved comedian. He embodied Laurel with an uncanny, almost scarifying verisimilitude. Retrospect will be kinder to Mr. Coogan than were the panjandrums of Hollywood. It was a great performance.Via Sony Pictures ClassicsMr. Coogan is splendid and sometimes moving in “The Penguin Lessons,” though his performance isn’t as ambitious. Playing a middle-aged Englishman for whom cynicism is a default mode, the actor coasts on the readymade strength of tart comedic chops. We recognize Mr. Coogan the performer even as he plays a fictional character, in this case Tom Michel, a bedragged teacher of English at a ritzy Buenos Aires boarding school.Mr. Coogan’s character is a cinematic version of a real-life Tom Michel, the author of a 2016 memoir, “The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned From A Remarkable Bird.” The book detailed the time Mr. Michel spent in a country beset by political turmoil — the early 1970s and the so-called Dirty War. A military coup and its subsequent abuses serve as a backdrop for a feel-good dramedy about a wise-cracking Briton who rediscovers his moral center and, with that, an enthusiasm for life. It is an ill-fitting congruence.“The Penguin Lessons” is unapologetic hokum crafted with workmanlike diligence. Mr. Cattaneo is likely best known for directing “The Full Monty” (1997), and there’s a similar strain of emotional button-pushing at the core of “The Penguin Lessons.” After the Argentinian government has been overturned by the military, our hero goes to Uruguay in the hopes of bedding a comely señorita or two. Instead, he ends up saving a penguin from the debris left behind from an oil spill. Through a series of we-saw-it-coming plot developments, Michel regains his humanity thanks to a cute little bird.And, damn it, penguins are cute: Even the most hard-hearted among us will cede our standards when the so-called Juan Salvador waddles across the screen. Mr. Cattaneo and editors Robin Peters and Tariq Anwar shamelessly tweak the tricks-of-their-trade in order to anthropomorphize a penguin. Walt Disney couldn’t have done it better, but Uncle Walt would’ve known that there are better backdrops for a light-hearted morality tale than a country turned asunder by duplicity, kidnapping, torture, and murder. As it is, “The Penguin Lessons” is either a children’s movie employing inappropriate means or an adult movie of rank sentimentality.

Release of ‘The Penguin Lessons’ Offers a Chance To Extol the Many Virtues of Steve Coogan

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