Heart, politics mix in 'Penguin Lessons'

  The Penguin Lessons, a movie about a lovable penguin that helps awaken the conscience of a jaded expat English teacher, takes place in Buenos Aires during the military oppression that gripped Argentina after a 1976 military coup.

   Played by Steve Coogan, Tom Mitchell reluctantly acquires the penguin while taking a break from school in nearby Uruguay. Not much of a nature lover, Mitchell was trying to impress an environmentally concerned woman who wanted to rescue the penguin from an oil slick that left the bird beached. 

  Based on a real-life story, the mostly pleasant Penguin Lessons tries to balance its heart-warming aspects with an acknowledgement of the horrors of life in a country where people suddenly were being "disappeared."

   Director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) can't quite find the compatibility between such oppositional strands, but at its best, The Penguin Lessons benefits from Coogan's witty work and from the presence of a waddling Magellan penguin that gives an endearing performance, presuming penguins can be said to act.

  The harshest aspects of military oppression aren't fully explored, but the regime's intentions become clear when the rebellious granddaughter (Alfonsina Carrocio) of one of the school's maids (Vivian El Jaber) is seized. Present when the young woman was taken, Mitchell only stood by and watched.

   The school's supporting cast includes an image-conscous headmaster (Jonathan Pryce) and a Finnish math teacher (Bjorn Gustafsson) who becomes a good-natured foil for Mitchell’s jokes. 

   For much of the movie, Mitchell hides the penguin -- eventually named Juan Salvador -- in the apartment the school provides for faculty. We know that the bird will help file the rough edges off his bitterness. It's a bit of a compromise, though not an unexpected one, to make the movie about the awakening of Mitchell's dormant conscience amid so much political terror.

   Penguin Lessons notwithstanding, it's unlikely that the introduction of penguins into classrooms will transform the world of international pedagogy -- unless, of course, already pressured schools want to invest in large supplies of fish.