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Film Review: Project Nim

Olly Mann thinks you should watch a chimp smoke dope and then hump a cat.

By Olly Mann

12 Aug 2011, 11:30

“I breastfed him for a couple of months. It seemed completely natural”. So speaks Stephanie LaFarge, the sex therapist who played surrogate mother to a chimp called Nim in a 1970s experiment. That’s right, a chimp. It’s just one of a series of popcorn-spitting revelations in this expertly-constructed film documenting the life of unfortunate Nim, who was torn from his biological mother to be raised as a human child, and then shamelessly and irresponsibly turfed around rescue centres and even an animal testing facility once the scientists realised that – guess what? – he wasn’t a human child, and would never entirely behave like one.
 
Director James Marsh and producer Simon Chin – the partnership behind the superb Man On Wire – have lined up all the key participants to tell Nim’s story. These include Professor Herbert Terrace, the narcissistic Columbia University behavioural psychologist who initiated the experiment; Laura-Ann Petito, the neuroscientist who (with some success) taught Nim sign language; and biomedical researcher Dr James Mahoney, responsible for inflicting painful virus research on primates in the lab. They and others reveal, sometimes unwittingly, just how unethical and chaotic the process was, as young Nim was ‘looked after’ by a series of carers who appear to have been selected primarily because randy Prof Terrace wanted to get into their pants.
 
Some feel remorse for bringing up a chimp as a human being and then shifting the parameters of the experiment at a crucial stage of his development; others seem hilariously oblivious to their inadequacies. We should be grateful to them all, though, for one thing: their relentless documenting of Nim at various stages of his life means there’s some cracking archive footage. Ever seen a chimp smoke dope? Or ask for an orange in sign language? Or hump a cat? It’s all here, as is the bittersweet moment when Nim has his first ever encounter with another chimpanzee, despite being years into his life. Tastefully and unobtrusively, reconstructions are also used to illustrate parts of the story for which no footage has been unearthed, and there’s a wonderful lightness of touch even as the story grows darker.
 
As with all documentaries, you may legitimately question whether it’s necessary to see this on the big screen at all. But I’m smelling Oscars. Project Nim is as thoughtful and solidly entertaining as any fictional work you’ll see at the flicks this year. So, catch it if you can.