In the movie The Penguin Lessons a cynical and disillusioned English teacher Tom Michell moves to Argentina where he starts teaching at a boarding school. The movie is set in 1976 during the military coup in Argentina that marks the beginning of a dictatorship in which 30,000 people disappeared. The atmosphere is grim, the military patrol the streets, and it is not clear who you can trust and whom you cannot trust. Tom then finds an oil-covered penguin on the beach. He takes the animal home and cleans it. When he wants to release the penguin back to the ocean, the penguin stubbornly refuses to leave and follows Tom, who reluctantly takes the penguin home with him to the boarding school.
The penguin has an amazing transformative influence on everybody he meets. He draws people in, and the movie shows many occasions where people share their deepest life story with the penguin, stories that they have never shared with another human. Tom also is transformed by the penguin and sheds the thick emotional shell that he carries with him. Time and time again, people in the movie transform by sharing their vulnerabilities with the penguin, and as a result they also open-up to their fellow humans. This opening-up happens in the background of a growing dictatorship that tends to make people shut down to others. In the end of the movie, even the toughest character in the movie ultimately softens and makes a grand gesture.
The impact of the penguin is not so large because of anything he does. In fact, the penguin does not do much. He occasionally says Khaaork, he poops in places where he shouldn’t, he is smelly, he looks cute, likes to be cuddled and follows people around. He does not transform people by words or actions, but by his presence. In fact, he is a powerful beneficial presence, and it is through this presence that he has a healing influence.
You may know people that are a beneficial presence. These are the people that help others grow, they help others shed hard emotional layers and dare to be vulnerable, they spread light. Often this does not happen through words, the penguin does not speak either, it is just his presence that touches people in a positive way. A beneficial presence empowers others. This happens in the movie too when Tom decides to speak up against the regime.
How can you be a beneficial presence? You don’t have to be perfect to be such a presence. We all have our lapses where we fall back in the flaws of our character. But we can also bounce back and rise above our flaws. We can then give others permission to be genuine by being genuine ourselves. We can see the inner person beyond their exterior and encourage that inner person to come out. In this process it does not matter much what we say—remember that the penguin only says Khaaork—we just need to be present. Do yourself a favor, watch The Penguin Lessons, and ask yourself what lessons the penguin has in store for you. Khaaork!