I’ll tell you why. In my previous post, I mentioned that yesterday I went to the Toronto Internation Film Festival for the first time. And while I had my plans, both with clips I booked beforehand and a list of upcoming films, in my mind, things typically do not go as planned. As I already emphasized, I am not ashamed of being angry, because it is quite unreasonable to be forced into watching so many new films in one day. In short, my indignation did not quite last long. What did was my time looking for The Penguin Lessons film on the TIFF website.
I knew where to go, I repeated to myself that The Penguin Lessons I wanted to watch was a film that had already been made, decided upon, and registered. But of course, I wouldn’t be walking around carrying a penguin plush toy and a sign that stated, ‘Where are you, Penguin?’ because that wouldn’t be plausible. Purple clouds could find carbs more rapidly. And then there were only conflicting sounds in my head – Is it getting any better? Would it be the same with every new round? A cascading sequence started with the induction forces. There was also a jagged relief in my head, crisscrossing minds jostling for space while intricate details quickly surfaced. The turbulence simmered down, eventually.
For almost nine days each year, I escape to the north, where we sit through films that I hope the public will find the most entertaining and engaging for the rest of the the year in my job as an individual who discusses movies for a living. Then, around mid festival, it happens: my whole being starts to surrender and my head feels crushed from all these movies: serious, artistic, challenging and often, breathtakingly beautiful films. Point is, the best job in the world comes with a lot of 2 hr plus movies, screens full of subtitles, harsh concrete buildings, people trying to achieve inner peace, addiction, liberated imaginations that depict people morphing into fantastical creatures, lots of screening, binge parties, sleeping in clubs…it’s a lot of chaos and no order… didn’t you have something to ask?
It’s hard to imagine anyone who wouldn’t need to unplug once in a while, which is why, long ago, I advocated the idea of the (Usually British) Film Festival Chill-Down Movie. That is precisely how it sounds; at least once during TIFF I try to find a film that appears to be worthwhile to watch but is also low on the effort scale. Let’s be perfectly clear: This has nothing to do with choosing a movie during which you can doze off.
I should rest here, as I am here for moving pictures. In an ideal world, the silent, archaic type of movies that are sadly missing today, featuring Irish emigration and American characters trying to portray decent human beings struggling through complex scenarios but ultimately having a happy ending – that is what I picture to watch on screen.
This plan has worked for me for the last 10 years of attending the Toronto International Film Festival. Sometimes, I was surprised to find little-known gems or I just remembered how much I loved certain filmmakers and wanted to collaborate with them again. The idea of spending time at chill-down the British film festival was new to me, but I came to it without any difficulties. My first installment of TIFF in 2014 was accompanied by some prime never seen before British films for instance, my old lady featuring Maggie Smith and learning to drive a Patrician Clarkson’s dramedy film – movies that would, of course, be of interest to fans. However, my hopes of watching them were soon dashed after my plunging into movies stripped of deep theme.
I improved. In 2015, I decided to spare some time and watch Lorene Scafaria’s very much underrated film The Meddler, which is an American version of the UBFFCDM as it features a widowed Susan Sarandon who is on the lookout for her daughter who has become a screenwriter and has moved to Los Angeles where she ends up enjoying visiting the grove quite a lot and starts going there every day (which is understandable).
In the year 2016, I was pretty much spot on about Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest. This is a movie that has everything you need from a UBFFCDM: it is going to be an undiscovered theatre so you will not have to struggle with the viewing always being competitive (and in case the picture is particularly good, you can always brag about discovering it) and it has the story of nice people who are portrayed by only not obscured celebrities like ‘in this case, Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy who play three English cinema makers who during the World War II, they were making films to be screened so as to raise the morale of the English people. Some pretty amount of emotional content is to be expected from these kinds of films, but the best of them will be more on the controlled side. In Their Finest, Scherfig does not choose to portray the devastation of the war or to indulge in it. Instead, she provides a depiction of decent people who are simply trying to do their best in a world which can be pretty nasty.
This time last year, I had made a poor choice in deciding to follow Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle in On Chesil Beach (which in my defense, I hadn’t read the novel) instead of a far more enticing option of Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland taking the nation in an RV in The Leisure Seeker.
Apparently, 2018 did not have enough British materials for chilldowns and I had to settle for Julianne Moore in Gloria Bell which didn’t quite help in the area of chill down as much as it played the role of a source of startle but still, it worked. When one watches Moore on screen, it’s hard to feel as if one is watching a hidden gem. Nevertheless, Moore and director Sebastián Lelio do their best to make Gloria’s minor achievements look well-deserved.
Military Wives of 2019 is about a personable choir lead by a supposed military wife played by Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan who portrays a more amicable person as opposed to the strict styles of Sister Act. This is a delightful movie, although this kind of story is better suited for a period film. After all, KST and Horgan should be in these films every year, they are ideal for them.
Two years went by after the COVID pandemic, and I was back at TIFF where I also had to confront my worst (UB)FFCDM blunder so far, the British film Allelujah. Richard Eyre’s movie about a hospital for old people sounded like a sweet tale about people finding love at their old age. To my horror, Jennifer Saunders was the villain who was slowly euthanizing them all. What bad news. Just awful news.
Hence, The Penguin Lessons was a welcome return for me. It is the purest form of the (UB)FFCDM. Coogan plays Tom Michell who travels to Buenos Aires in 1976 for a teaching job at a boarding school. While on a week long vacation in neighboring Uruguay – to escape the Argentine military coup, as you might expect Coogan and a woman he is trying to seduce find an oil-stained penguin on the beach, and with just a little planning, naturally, Coogan is on his way back to Buenos Aires with a penguin in his arms.
The director of the film, Peter Cattaneo, has quite a knack for this brand of light comedy. He was also the director of the mentioned earlier Military Wives, but save for 1997, he was pretty much the one who recorded perhaps the greatest chill-out film ever, The Full Monty, which for some unnatural reason never did get screened at any of the significant film festivals, yet won over the Americans enough to receive a surprise Best Film nomination at the Academy Awards. Here, Cattaneo places his humorous narrative about a cranky educator rekindling his passion with the help of a cute pet in the middle of a South American coup where countless left wing suspects were kidnapped and pronounced missing for an unreasonable amount of time: all this is made and presented without any tackiness at all.
To be quite frank: You have seen this film before, save for the oddity of Steve Coogan putting fish in the beak of a penguin. Jonathan Pryce portrays Howard’s headmaster who thinks that everything relating to politics should be kept out of the school premises. While Coogan’s students get quite a few verbal kicks bullying the one kid whose parents are said to be socilists, Coogan takes the opportunity to teach them tolerance through English verbs and tenses. Björn Gustafsson (who played the Swede who got kicked like a sledghammer by Melissa McCarthy in Spy) is Coogan’s teacher friend who is infatuated with him and thus, mounds on touchy feely coquetting. Vivian El Jaber plays the straight forward cook of the school. Everyone, as it happens, gets the desire to talk to a fishhead at some time.
It’s adorable! It’s hilarious! There is a scene where the action in the movie takes place in a disco in Uruguay. The storyline at this point is quite reminiscent of the situation in Three Men and a Baby only the baby is a penguin and the secondary plot of the heroin is that of Argentine fascists. The fascists grab a couple of these people to give the movie some suspense, and Coogan’s character grows a pair and learns how to fight for something instead of just going through life. It concludes with an epilogue by the real Tom Michell and a home video of the real Juan Salvador, the penguin they found and named Juan Salvador.
The Penguin Lessons should be a film of the year award this year at the TIFF. In spite of that, the light drama’s capacity to enhance the mind is no more a pleasure to be talked about in this awards season. Quite frankly and I hope you do watch it in about a year or so and think to yourself, ‘Well that sure is an absurd title for something,’ and reconsider watching it. If you do, you and your poor, weary brain will thank you for it.
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