Review: Project Nim

In 1973 Herb Terrace, a professor in psychology at Columbia University, set out to prove that humans were not the only creatures capable of language. In what was a ground-breaking experiment at the time, he placed a baby chimpanzee called Nim in the care of a human family and attempted to teach the primate to communicate in sign language. James Marsh’s documentary chronicles the quirky and at times very turbulent life of the aptly-named Nim Chimpsky.

As far as real life stories go, Project Nim is a winner. It has a unique set-up, a guaranteed emotional arc and an adorable protagonist at centre frame. As the dated footage reveals, Nim was not only a dungaree-wearing chimp, but one who could communicate his penchant for hugs and cats through a series of clumsy hand gestures. The clips are both unbearably endearing and laugh-out loud funny. Basically, Project Nim would work wonders as a Disney film.

Instead what we have is a very engaging documentary which appears less concerned with the simian’s progress and more intent on exposing through a series of interviews the flawed and contradictive nature of the humans surrounding him. Stephanie LaFarge, Terrace’s protégé who functioned as a tender mother to an infant Nim, gradually let slip a naïve and deluded conviction that was symptomatic of the hippie era of the 70s. Animal rights activist Cleveland Armory may have been benevolent to let Nim spend his final years on a ranch, but clearly lacked both the knowledge and the resources to maintain him properly. Worst of all is Terrace himself, a man devoid of significant compassion, who refused to refer to Nim as anything other than a “scientific project” and seemingly had relationships with a few of his female students.

But Marsh’s goal is not merely to vilify human beings, as he doesn’t shy away from documenting some of Nim’s more unpleasant episodes, such as his feral and totally unprovoked attack on one of the kinder caretakers, or the time in which he inadvertently killed a poodle by slamming it against a wall. Apparently he just wanted the pooch to stop barking. It is moments like these where the underlying message transpires: man cannot and should not monkey around with nature.

It is a lesson which is heavily emphasised until the film’s final moments, as a greying Nim is locked away, betrayed and abandoned by the human race and suddenly it starts to become clear why Project Nim may have been released a few weeks ahead of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

4/5