Penguin Lessons

Yesterday we went to the cinema to see the charming "The Penguin Lessons". Steve Coogan is the main actor. Jonathan Pryce is also in it. It is based on a 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, a British teacher who taught at a boys' boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s (when he was in his twenties; the fact Coogan is 58 didn't really matter). Michell finds a penguin soaked with oil on a beach in Uruguay and takes it back to the school, where it becomes a popular pet. The message is the usual positive side of humanism, the main character being a bit of a waster with a sad past (fictional addition) who perhaps does some good despite himself. It's a 12a for good reason but is worth watching if you can cope with the periodic swearing. The penguin is brilliant. They mostly used real animals apparently but there was a little jiggery-pokery. (This is at least the third Argentinian-themed film for Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce, who previously played Argentinian president Juan Perón in Evita, as my wife pointed out to me, and also Pope Francis II (who was Argentinian) in The Two Popes.