The Penguin Lessons

Posted on March 27, 2025 at 5:55 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for strong language, some sexual references and thematic elements
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Mostly off-screen depiction of a military coup, characters captured and beaten
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 28, 2025

“I had you as a head down sort of fellow. Anything for a quiet life.” Jonathan Pryce as the headmaster of a posh private school in Buenos Aires is disappointed to discover that the English professor he thought wanted to hide from the world and, especially, from his feelings, might have started out that way but due to an outside influence, had become a head up sort of fellow who was increasingly less quiet.

That professor is Tom Michell (Steve Coogan), who is joking-not-joking when he tells the headmaster his career has been “steadily working my way down,” and then adds, “geographically speaking.” Both are Brits who have ended up in Argentina just as it is on the brink of a military coup in 1976. The headmaster explains that there is “trouble in the streets and the economy is in free fall,” but their school is a haven where wealthy families send their sons. He tells the faculty it is also a haven from any conversation about politics. “Whatever strong opinions you may have, keep them to yourselves and don’t bore the rest of us.”

The coup happens and the school sends the students home for a week until the country calms down. All this means to Michell is a chance to go to Uruguay for a chance to drink and perhaps find some ladies. A lonely colleague from Finland (Björn Gustafsson) comes along, telling Michell, “I like you.” Michell responds, more wry than bitter, “Do you? I don’t.”

They go to a bar and Michell meets a beautiful woman who takes him for a walk on the beach. They come across a Magellanic penguin drenched in oil from a spill. Only because he wants to impress (meaning, have sex with) the lady, Michell agrees to clean off the penguin. The lady then leaves and Michell is about to discover that penguins are very loyal and this one will not leave him.

That is how Michell ends up hiding a penguin, later named Juan Salvador, in his room. The flightless bird is quickly discovered by the maid and her granddaughter, Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio) who gives him his name, from the Spanish version of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

The setting makes this more than the typical “grumpy or grieving person finds solace, hope, and connection with an animal” movie. Screenwriter Jeff Pope, who worked with Coogan on “Philomena,” “The Lost King,” and “Stan and Ollie,” took the real-life story of a 23-year-old teacher and adapted it to Coogan’s strengths as an actor. This is one of the best performances from someone who is not given a chance to show all he can do often enough. At first he is remote, though not humorless. He tries to reach his “privileged and spoiled” students by explaining sarcasm. Then, as it becomes harder to pretend to ignore the atrocities around him, especially after Sofia is taken, the poetry he shares with his students begins to tend first toward loss, then courage, integrity, even rebellion. There’s a wonderful moment when Michell is on the phone with the local zoo, saying he will kill the bird if they won’t take Juan Salvador, quickly gesturing to the penguin reassuringly.

The combination of horrific national tragedy with the personal story of someone unconnected to the community does not always work. But people do struggle to work through their own losses and sometimes they do find connection in unexpected places that help them reconcile emotions they thought were too painful to acknowledge. There is so much warmth and humor in this story that we cannot help feeling touched by the story and maybe even thinking about a penguin of our own.

Parents should know: This movie occurs during a brutal military coup and while much of the abuse is off-screen, a character is “disappeared” and the end credits acknowledge that thousands were captured and killed during this period. Characters use strong language, drink alcohol, and mention sex

Family discussion: When did Michell’s feelings about the penguin begin to change? Why did everyone want to talk to the penguin?

If you like this, try: The book by the real Tom Michell, My Penguin Friend, and the beloved documentary March of the Penguins

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

Posted on April 27, 2023 at 5:35 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Family stress
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, tension over religious differences
Date Released to Theaters:	April 28, 2023

Judy Blume revolutionized what we now call YA literature with good stories and appealing characters. Most important, though, was she told the truth, simply and openly, about subjects adults too often make it hard for kids to ask about. It is not just that kids worry about the challenges of puberty, for example. The tougher part is the feeling that they’re the only ones, that everyone else seems to have got some key to it all that they’ve missed. One of Blume’s most popular books is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. It was considered revolutionary at the time — and still the subject of book bans today — for its candid depiction of puberty, menstruation, the crushing middle school pressure to fit in, and perhaps even more shocking, questioning whether which religion, if any, she wanted to follow.

Blume resisted allowing her books to be adapted for film for a long time. But now, as a documentary about Blume herself is released, the 85-year-old author has authorized this film (she is also a producer), and it is the most loving, authentic adaptation imaginable, utterly true to the story, tone, and messages of the 1970 novel.

Wisely, they kept the 1970 setting. Today, the girls would get some information (and a lot of misinformation) from the internet and from books by Blume and others who followed her. But in 1970, all they had was rumors and someone’s dad’s Playboy.

The heroine of the title is 11 as the movie starts, and like pre-puberty characters in popular fiction over the years, from Pollyanna to Alice to Dorothy to Pippi Longstocking, she is happy and confident. But like almost all going-on-twelve year olds, she is starting to feel unsure of herself, looks to her peers instead of her parents to set the rules, and tries to blend in with those around her. This is amplified by having to get used to a new school where she does not know anyone. Her new neighbor, Nancy (Elle Graham) introduces herself and invites Margaret over to run under the sprinkler. Nancy is bossy, and Margaret finds that reassuring. When Nancy tells her she must not wear socks on the first day of school, she obeys, even though she gets blisters, as her mother warned her. When Nancy tells her she has to wear a bra, Margaret insists on getting one.

Margaret adores her grandmother, Sylvia, played with brio by Kathy Bates. Today we might call her “extra” or “no filters.” Back then, they probably called her impulsive, brassy, and outspoken. They both worry about missing each other when the family moves, and Margaret loves going into the city all by herself to visit Sylvia. They have a lot of fun together.

This story does not take the usual short-cuts in movies about children and pre-teens, with parents who have to be taught by their kids about what is going on and what they need. Margaret has good parents who love each other and love her. They are perceptive and supportive. Margaret’s father Herb (Benny Sadie) was raised Jewish. Her mother Barbara (Rachel McAdams) was raised by devout Christians and is estranged from her parents because they did not want her to marry a Jew). Herb and Barbara chose to raise Margaret without religion, and that has made her feel like an outsider. She tells her teacher she hates religious holidays because her family does not observe them. So she decides her year-long research project should be about religion. She goes to church with a friend and asks Syliva to take her to services at a synagogue. When Barbara’s parents come for a visit and try to impose their religion, Barbara tells them to leave. This is the most superficial and unsatisfying part of the book and the movie. Margaret learns nothing about religion beyond tribalism and it is hard to imagine she would get a passing grade on her paper.

The film is much better in dealing with the social pressures and the worries about the changes of puberty. It is a very rare film that is honest, in a very low-key way, about the stirrings of female desire. In a very sweet moment, Margaret’s parents exchange knowing glances, then ask her if she’d like to be the one to pay the boy mowing the lawn. She would. A memorable theme from the book and movie is the way a girl who matured early (Margaret at first thinks she is a teacher) is othered and insulted. While Margaret is impatient and worried about when she will develop breasts and menstruate, she learns that a girl who developed early is just as worried and lonely. Her growing sense of herself and the possibilities before her is what has made the book a foundational text for half a century and is lovingly portrayed in this adaptation.

Parents should know that this movie deals frankly with puberty and menstruation. There is also family strife over religion.

Family discussion: Why does Margaret want to do what Nancy tells her? How has middle school changed since this book was written? Why do some communities want to remove this book from the library?

If you like this, try: the book by Judy Blume

Dear Evan Hansen

Posted on September 23, 2021 at 5:12 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	The PG-13 rating is for thematic material involving suicide, brief strong language and some suggestive references
Profanity:	Brief strong language

Adapting a play for the screen is always a challenge, especially when the play is hugely successful because fans are attached to elements of the play that might not work on screen. It is even more of a challenge when the play is a musical. “Dear Evan Hansen” is a multiple award-winning Broadway musical about a teenager struggling with anxiety and depression who impulsively tells a lie to comfort a grieving family. Its transition to film is uneven, sometimes clumsy, sometimes frustrating. One important change improves the original. One important decision not to change weakens the film. And it is too long.

The title comes from a letter high school senior Evan Hansen writes to himself on the advice of his therapist. Hansen is played by Ben Platt, who won a Tony award for his performance in the Broadway, turns 28 this week, and there has been a lot of commentary about whether he is too old to play a teenager. Probably, but the actors were too old to play teenagers in “Grease,” too. The bigger problem is that his performance does not translate completely to screen. He is far more effective as a singer than an actor here. In part that may be due to excessive deference to the performance that has been lauded for years on stage. In part, though, it is attributable to the inherent weakness of the material. The character is written as not much more than a collection of symptoms, longings, and frustrations, and the cinematic storytelling that literally takes us up close and very personal exposes the superficiality of some of the material.

Evan carries his pep talk of a letter to himself to school, where he is alternately ignored or harassed. There is Zoe, a girl he wishes he could figure out how to talk to (25-year-old Kaitlyn Dever). There is a classmate who has to be a little bit nice to him because they are related (Nik Dodani as Jared). There is the girl who seems to have it all together (the radiant Amandla Stenberg as Alana). And there is Zoe’s brother, a troubled, hostile classmate named Connor (Colton Ryan), who misinterprets Evan’s clumsy efforts to be friendly as insulting, and snatches the letter from him in retaliation.

Connor takes his own life. His shattered parents find the letter and think Connor was sending it to Evan, evidence that he had a close friend. Desperate to hold onto any comfort, they beg Evan to tell them about his relationship with Connor. He simply does not have the communication skills to tell them the truth and so he not only pretends that the letter was written by Connor, he makes up a series of stories about their close friendship and what a comfort Connor was to him. He tells Zoe, who is resentful of the trauma Connor’s mental illness inflicted on the family, that Connor cared deeply about her. His ability to comfort Connor’s family perversely gives him a sense of confidence and connection that does more to reduce his anxiety than medication or therapy. Instead of his overworked single mother (Julianne Moore), he spends time with Connor’s parents, Cynthia (Amy Adams) and Larry (Danny Pino), and Zoe, almost accepted as one of their family.

But this cannot continue. I give director Stephen Chbosky (“Wonder”) and writer Steven Levenson, who adapted his script for the play, credit for correcting one of the play’s biggest weaknesses and allowing Evan to more fully accept the consequences of his lies. And I give them a lot of credit for making it clear that one way for Evan to begin to find healing for his own issues is to recognize the vulnerabilities of others. Alana’s honesty in reaching out to him is one of the film’s most powerful moments, and Stenberg once again shows us that she is past promising and already one of the screen’s most accomplished and appealing performers. Dever, also, continues to be a actor of unusual precision in expressing the most subtle and complex emotions. Ryan makes a strong impression, especially in the imagined scenes as Evan makes up stories about him.

It mitigates but does not eliminate the disconnect between the play’s expectation that we will sympathize with Evan more than we do. And I do not think any movie has ever successfully persuaded audiences that what they portray as viral would in the surreal world of social media, actually go viral. But the movie’s message about recognizing the vulnerability of everyone and the importance on empathy for others as a part of growing our own sense of agency, capability, and worthiness is important enough to make up for the uneven pacing and the way that the performances of the younger actors at time seem to be in different movies.

Parents should know that this film includes depictions of mental illness and (offscreen) teen suicide, brief strong language, and some suggestive references.

Family discussion: Reconsider some of the people whose behavior you have thought annoying or difficult to understand in light of this movie. How can you be more supportive of the vulnerable people around you?

If you like this, try: “Wonder” by the same director

Trailer: Saved by the Bell Reboot

Posted on August 16, 2020 at 7:17 am

Did anyone need a reboot of “Saved by the Bell?” Pretty sure the answer is no, but I have to say, this looks better than the original. Coming to Peacock.

Eighth Grade

Posted on July 12, 2018 at 3:02 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some sexual material
Profanity:	Strong and crude language
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense emotional situations, sexual predation
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 13, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	October 8, 2018

Maybe “Eighth Grade” should come with a trigger warning. It is so viscerally authentic to the experience of being in middle school that for a moment I felt like I was standing in the lunchroom clutching my tray, desperately hoping that I would (a) be invited to sit with anyone and (b) become invisible, swallowed up by the ground, magically either five years older or younger, or all of those at once.

There’s a reason that even people well into their fifth and sixth and seventh decades still wake up at night after an anxiety nightmare about middle school. Those moments of hormonal, emotional, and cognitive upheavals that cruelly hit us just after we master childhood and make us certain that the adults around us are lame, that we are less lame but somehow lamer than we would like people to think of us as — for most of us, there is nothing as humiliating in any aspect of adult life that is as excruciatingly anxious as any given day in middle school.

Bo Burnham, who starting posting funny videos on YouTube when he was a teenager and became a very successful stand-up comic, is still in his 20’s, so his memories of the teen years are very accessible. Furthermore, he has been very frank about his struggles with anxiety including devastating stage fright. So he naturally turned to watching online videos of young teenagers, and realized that they may not be very sophisticated or articulate, but they are aspirational and brave.

And so we meet the movie’s main character, Kayla (Elsie Fisher) as she is recording a very aspirational and very brave video about “being yourself.” She is not exactly herself in this video, but she is both the person she would like to be and the person she would like to listen to for guidance.

It is the last week of eighth grade, and there is agony after agony. She tries to talk to the alpha girls. She tries to talk to the boy she likes. She sits through a hilariously painful video about puberty, with a woman who assures them that this experience “is going to be lit!” She is invited to a pool party the hostess does not want her at by the girl’s mother, and she goes to it. Her loving but hapless single dad impinges on her life just by existing and even worse, he wants to TALK to her! And LOOK at her! And tell her she’s cool!!

Kayla gets a glimpse of her past when the “time capsule” she created on the first day of middle school, addressed confidently “to the coolest girl in the world” contains a video she made with her hopes and predictions for where she’d be at graduation. And she gets a glimpse of her future when she “shadows” Olivia, a friendly high school girl (Emily Robinson). We can see that Olivia is not nearly as confident as she would like to appear, but she makes Kayla feel accepted and as though there is a path for her.

SPOILER ALERT: Normally I would not do this, because I try hard to avoid spoilers, but I feel in this case I can mention that while Kayla teeters on the edge of some very bad decisions, she comes out of this okay.

Parents should know that this movie has very strong and crude language and sexual references and a boy tries to pressure Kayla for sex.

Family discussion: If you made a video message to be opened in four years, what would you say? Has social media made middle school easier or harder?

If you like this, try: Rookie’s “Ask a Grown” series and my interview with Burnham, Robinson, and Fisher. There are actually a couple of real-life movies with kids interviewing their older selves, here and here.