'My Penguin Friend' Review: Me and My Shadow

Jean Reno stars as a fisherman who is unexpectedly beguiled by a lost penguin.

Opening in Theaters: Can humans and animals live together in peace without driving each other crazy? Or eating one another? 

Good questions both, and they are both addressed, if not completely answered, in My Penguin Friend. The first question adults might ask, though, is different: why bother to see a movie so clearly aimed at children?

Indeed, the poster shows a cheerful Jean Reno locking eyes with an adorable penguin in his arms, with a beaming young child delightedly showing her approval. The film is rated PG "for thematic content," all of which fairly well screams out at adults, especially those without children: 'Not for me.' 

My reaction was similar, though I'm always curious about any film that stars Jean Reno. My generation knows him best as a taciturn action star, cemented by his roles in Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional (1994) and John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1999), though he has certainly shown his versatility in many different roles over the years. Still, it's a bit startling to see him in his opening scenes in My Penguin Friend acting his age: he is now in his mid-70s. 

By that point, we've already seen the younger years of his character, João, which have established him as a cheerful fisherman in a small village in Brazil. João enjoys life with his supportive wife Maria and active young son until an unexpected storm leads to a shattering loss of the boy at sea. 

Decades later, João (now played by Jean Reno) remains married to his wife, Maria (now played by Adriana Barraza), but he is no longer cheerful, and he hasn't been for many years. He still fishes to care for the couple's needs, but he finds no joy in anything he does. 

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, a penguin is delayed in beginning his annual migration and becomes separated from his kinfolk. Somehow, he ends up drifting in the ocean and is spotted by João, whose latent fatherly instincts kick in, prompting him to rescue a helpless creature who has been drenched by an oil spill somewhere in the sea. 

As Humphrey Bogart said at the conclusion of Casablanca: "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship." 

A lovely, modest film that delivers a praiseworthy message without being too heavy-handed about it, My Penguin Friend is based on a true story. And so DinDim, as the penguin is named by a village girl, returns to his home in the Patagonia region in South America every year, because that's what his natural instincts tell him to do. 

In Patagonia, DinDim is tagged by a team of three marine biologists who are studying penguins in the area: Adriana (Alexia Moyano), Carlos (Nicholás Fernandez), and Stephanie (Rochi Hernádez), who then follow his activity in the following years. Meanwhile, DinDim continues to migrate, seemingly changing his pattern so as to see his new and dear friend João again. 

Director David Schurmann has made both narrative and documentary features, and that experience serves him well with My Penguin Friend, which, in its early going especially, appears to switch to a native documentary approach. Without dialogue, the penguin is shown waddling around his home territory without any humans in sight, and then plunges into the sea for a long trip. 

João takes comfort in the penguin, and it's easy to see why: the penguin doesn't talk, and never makes any demands of him. True, his wife Maria is supportive and puts up with the penguin. Yet the relationship between João and the penguin is something special. The obvious connection is that the penguin is a substitute for his lost son. 

It's easy enough to see, though, that the penguin also becomes a bridge for João to once again connect with other people, to be more relaxed around others, even cute children and the grown-up young girl who once showed affection for his beloved son.

Eventually, sad Jean Reno becomes cheerful Jean Reno, and makes the poster come true. It takes a little time, but the story's relevance, and the important message it delivers about nature, the environment, and letting wild animals be free and make their own decisions, come home as well, elevating My Penguin Friend as a whole into a film for everyone, even single adults without children.

[The film opens August 16, only in movie theaters, via Roadside Attractions. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.]