Excellent, a Must See

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Whenever we forget how sexist and cruel the '70s were there are stories like this to remind us: a supposedly serious researcher keeps making decisions with his dick and shows zero interest in the emotional well-being of his study-subject. It starts when a kid-chimp is taken from his mother by force. As nothing says 'grow up to be a well-adjusted adult' like being kidnapped from your loving mother. Then the baby is dumped with the professor's ex-girlfriend (she is a woman you see, and he is a man so he cannot possibly take care of a baby). When she turns out to be a child-neglecting hippie (letting her ape- baby smoke weed, not taking any notes of the experiment) he puts the ape with his new teenage girlfriend. SignLanguage-teaching now begins. This set-up doesn't work out either, but luckily there's finally a proper teacher who teaches the poor ape some rudimentary social skills such as to not bite people (the professor dislikes her, presumably because she's more interested in his assistant's dick). Nim-the-talking-ape is by now world-famous, but he's still a wild and physically strong animal (and an heavily abused one at that) so he lashes out and needs to be put in a cage, with other apes. After a difficult start he finds his turn, with a chimp-girlfriend and a relaxed approach to his sign-language-lessons. With his chance of being 'the guy who made an ape into a human' gone the prof makes a 180 as 'the guy who proved that apes are definitely not human'. What little interest he had in Nim as a person completely gone by now. Nim gets screwed over by humanity again when he and his new ape- family are shipped of to nasty drugs-tests. After lots of activism he ends up in a sanctuary where he lives out his remaining years with some ups and downs.

As in White Oleander, Alison Lohman's character goes through many obstactles going from foster home to foster home to institution to wherever the journey may take her character, and in a lot of ways, Nim is like Lohman's character. Nim lives a full life of ups and downs being taken away from his mother, going to one home, then another, then getting tested on for experiments, to going to a ranch. It is a rough and full life for Nim.With that full life though, there is heartache that goes out to Nim from us, the viewer, at the same time there is a special connection with Nim too, knowing he is smart, special and we can really identify with him, not only with compassion, but with empathy on a human level, as Nim goes through the gamut of what us humans go through. He goes through anger, sadness, depression, happiness, resentment, friendships, love, hate, etc. And you cry out for Nim because you've been there.When his his first human mother came back to visit him and got in the cage with him to where Nim almost killed her, it can be said that maybe Nim forgot who she was and that was just the chimp coming out in him. But who knows, maybe Nim did know who she was and hated her with much resentment for leaving him and for all the pain and suffering he's been through since then to only come back as if all was well, and he was going to show her not all was well. Who knows.I think the experiment proved that you can treat chimps just like human beings as was the case from beginning to the end of Nim's life. I think Dr. Terrace was wrong, Nim was communicating, he understood the words to what he was feeling, and that's communication. So what if Nim didn't use complete sentences. Maybe those are complete sentences to a chimp or perhaps Nim just wasn't taught correctly to use complete sentences. Chimps still have their animal and natural innate instincts as all creatures on this planet do, and that was proved as well.But the project proved true to where Nim was more than just an animal friend, he was our friend as a wonderful animal of course, but also as a sort of human being as well. He was our friend on multiple levels. Dr. Terrace got it wrong. Nim was human on many levels more than any chimp, and that's also what led to more of Nim's suffering too, being human.

This is the true story of what happened when a baby chimp, Nim, it taken from his mother and placed with a human family. He is taught sign language by a series of carers before becoming too big and dangerous around the age of 5 at which time he is returned to the ranch he was taken from. There is a huge amount going on in this documentary as the carers over the years are interviewed with footage from the time. What emerges will probably anger and sadden most viewers. Though I felt that Nim's carers genuinely bonded with him what emerges is a largely a tale of careless cruelty. Equally interesting and perhaps the root cause of what happens later is the relationships between the humans. Particularly between the project leader Professor Herbert Terrance and the numerous attractive research assistants. There are several references to the power he held and exercised. Overall it has to be said he does not emerge from this film as either likable or particularly competent. The various approaches of the teachers and carers differ so widely and even though there is much happy footage you have to wonder at the effect this had on Nim. I was left with the feeling that he eventually responded best to the people who recognised him as a chimp but still treated him as a companion within the limits this imposed. This is a powerful film that should be shown as widely as possible and would probably be good thing to included in school curricular.

As someone who didn't care for "Man on Wire," this director's previous film, and as someone who thinks critical response is often over-rated for documentaries, I was pleasantly surprised by "Project Nim." I thought it was the best documentary of 2011, and my wife thought it was the best film of 2011. This movie was extremely compelling from the start, and very moving throughout. I also thought it was interesting that what was "acceptable" science in the 70's has evolved into something that we look back on as something inhumane. What a difference 40 years makes! And the doctor who ran the study? What a jerk, not just in the callousness he displayed in his Nim experiment, but in the lack of ethics he had in sleeping with his students.