The penguin at the centre of The Penguin Lessons, a new movie by Peter Cattaneo, is nothing if not hard-working. The film, adapted from the 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, uses the political turmoil of Argentina in 1976 as a backdrop for the personal transformation of an English teacher at a boys’ school. Michell (Steve Coogan) is an idle curmudgeon when he rescues an oil-drenched Magellan penguin from a beach in Uruguay in an attempt to impress an attractive woman. She leaves, but he is stuck with the bird, whom he duly names Juan Salvador, and who thaws him out sufficiently to bond with students and colleagues, process past trauma and rekindle a political idealism.
Naturally, there are hurdles for Juan Salvador to clear before the interspecies friendship spreads its wings. Michell tries a range of methods to ditch his new buddy, only for him to waddle back so determinedly that Michell reluctantly transports the penguin across the Argentine border and installs him on the terrace at the college. A perception shift on the charms of his new roommate is aided by an influx of visitors of all ages. Staff and students alike delight in feeding him sprats and – more significantly – in quieter moments are drawn to unburden themselves.
In his memoir, Michell mused on the magnetism of a silent yet sentient audience. “As with any good pastor or patrician, Juan Salvador was such a good listener, patiently absorbing everything that was said to him, from observations about the weather to secrets of the heart. He never once interrupted. He looked people straight in the eye and always paid such close attention to what was said that his guests were inclined to talk to him on equal terms.”
The film is the latest in a remarkably long-legged subgenre: man in or approaching middle age experiences powerful emotional awakening thanks to an animal whom they initially kept at leash’s length. Unconventional riffs on the subgenre plunge us into the relationship once it has already hit its stride, but for those that start with teething troubles, their secret is stealth psychological power. While it is tempting to focus on the surface charms of, say, Channing Tatum as Jackson confronting the cost of his military service with the help of a hound in 2022’s Dog, or the ominous setup of Nicolas Cage as Robin retiring to the woods with a virtuoso truffle porker in Pig (2021), these films may reveal more about how men are taught to handle themselves than meets the eye.
“For some males, the world doesn’t feel really safe to connect to,” says Dr Chris Blazina, psychologist and co-author of a 2019 study, Do Men Underreport and Mask Their Emotional Attachment to Animal Companions? The Influence of Precarious Masculinity on Men’s Bonds with Their Dogs. Blazina believes many men find their attachment to their dog to be more secure than their closest human relationships, particularly in middle-age and beyond.
He throws into relief how vital a relationship like this can be by saying that a lack of social connection has been found to be as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. “We need connection not just to survive growing up but throughout our lives to flourish as whole human beings,” he says, advancing the theory that a loving relationship with a pet can be a lifeline to men otherwise inclined towards emotional detachment. “They can turn to animal companions as a friend or family member, and it helps. It’s not the complete package, but it sustains some men in a way where they don’t give up on connecting.” Men are susceptible to a close attachment with an animal, thinks Blazina, because it is a relationship that can blossom in private, while in public they can underplay its importance.
Back in movieland, Tom, Jackson and Robin find that in the non-judgmental space provided by their pets of choice, suppressed feelings surface and they end up more fully inhabiting their emotions. This leads them to connect more authentically and deeply with the people around them. As Blazina says: “We’re hardwired to connect. Sometimes, as human beings, we do such a good job of putting up barriers that say we don’t need that. And with dogs, it can be a little cleaner.”
The relationship between men and dogs has a special status in cinema and the wider culture, whether powering the entire John Wick franchise (2014-), exposing the true colours of humans in The Call of the Wild (1997) or showing a devotion that not even death can halt as in the tear-jerker Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009). It is not always the case that a canine outlives his master: indeed, their demise is so often weaponised to help a repressed hero confront grief that the website, Does the dog die?, was created to help sensitive viewers navigate the cinematic landscape. As Rudyard Kipling put it in his 1909 poem, The Power of the Dog, “Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware / Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.”
Dogs tend to turn up in soulful dramas or family films. Primates, on the other hand, are infantilised as naughty children, as in Monkey Trouble (1994) and (to verge into TV) Friends (1994-2004), or have their humanoid features exploited to position them as a menace to civilisation, such as in King Kong (1933) or Planet of the Apes (1968) and their many spin-offs and reboots.
Creature-features, like the above, may introduce the beasts as brutes but eventually come round to the idea that man is a greater menace and animals have overlooked depths. This chimes with a reflection expressed by Michell towards the end of his memoir. Having spent much time meeting people on his travels around South America, he realises: “I would never have opened my heart to them, as I had to Juan Salvador, and the same was true of all those who encountered him. How was it that a penguin brought such comfort and tranquility to the people whose lives he touched? Why did they go to his terrace and bare their souls to him as though they had known him for a lifetime, treating him like a real friend who could be relied upon in adversity?”
While the mysteries of life-changing attachments to animals cannot be boiled down in one article, there is an infectious quality to this subgenre of cinema. Watching Coogan slowly stripping back his character’s protective plumage to expose a sincere and vulnerable man, creates emotional space for the viewer to feel as Michell does. It may occupy the opposite role to Juan Salvador (talking rather than listening) but, nonetheless, cinema can provide a safe, sounding board for our buried emotions.
