Should you watch Project Nim?
Who it’s good for, who it isn’t, and what’s in it. No ratings, no scores.
Project Nim
Documentary · 2011
From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
The sides of Project Nim
- A chimpanzee raised like a human child
- A 1970s experiment in sign language
- The people who loved him and let him go
Project Nim is good for you if…
- you like a true story told by the people who lived it.
- you're fascinated by what animals can and can't learn from us.
- you like a documentary that leaves you moved and unsettled.
Project Nim is bad for you if…
- you can't watch an animal suffer in cages and labs.
- you want a feel-good animal story.
About: the animal and the human · science · responsibility
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