’Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose’ Review: Simon Pegg Can’t Save Odd Treatment of Bizarre Historical Anecdote
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic “Based on a true story” has become one of the most overused (and misleading) labels of our time. Still, its application to “Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose” is duly warranted — and no less ridiculous for being so.
The “true events” drawn on here remain dumbfounding: In the 1930s, a family living in a farmhouse on the Isle of Main claimed they played frequent host to an octogenarian mongoose from New Delhi whose mysterious powers were hardly limited to human speech.
This tale attracted considerable interest from tabloids, tourists and investigators over several years’ course. Belief persisted despite all kinds of doubt-casting evidence, not least the daughter’s admitted talent for ventriloquism.
It’s the kind of wonderfully bizarre anecdote one imagines can hardly miss in screen depiction. Yet somehow it does just that in U.S.
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