Inspired by a true story, this gentle and charming comedy-drama sees Steve Coogan play a disaffected English teacher arriving to tach at a private school in 1976 Argentina who, on a break to Uruguay, adopts - or is adopted by - a penguin which he rescues from an oil slick. The early lighter part of the film that follows Coogan reluctantly and hesitantly bonding with his new charge gives way to the real historical background of the military coup that provides the film with an increasingly sombre edge, but the film balances both strands very nicely in the second half as the penguin changes not only the teacher's life but those around him as well. Steve Coogan's understated and sardonic is utterly delightful and at the centre of the film's success. On paper it is the bizarre love-child of Dead Poets Society and Mr Popper's Penguins, but in actuality the script is warm and wry, the location work is attractive and both the chucklesome situations and the heartfelt dramatic thread work very well. Also, it goes without saying: the penguin is the cutest creature imaginable!
No comments:
Post a Comment