The true 'The Penguin Lessons' movie story

The Lives Less Ordinary podcast has true story that inspired the delightful movie 'The Penguin Lessons' with Steve Coogan & Jonathan Pryce. Spoilers if you haven't seen it already but knowing won't reduce your enjoyment if do. I loved this movie, both for itself and it being set in the 70s revolutionary Buenos Aires I'd heard about, so passionately, from Gaston on the BA Bike tour when I was there in 2019 (below).

Lives Less Ordinary: The penguin that followed a teacher home

While visiting friends in Uruguay, British teacher Tom Michell saw a penguin covered in oil and tar on a beach. Tom cleaned the bird as best he could and then tried to release it. The penguin refused to return to the wild, it just followed Tom around. So he took it home, smuggling the animal across the border into Argentina where he lived and worked at a boarding school. The penguin became a part of his life, and the school's life - with a remarkable influence on everyone who came into contact with it.

Later Tom entertained his children, friends and family with tales of the penguin. He put those stories into a bestselling book, The Penguin Lessons, now the subject of a film starring British comedian Steve Coogan.

'The Penguin Lessons' movie on IMDB