Project Nim tells the story of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee subject from the 1970s who was designated to spend his time exclusively with humans bent on teaching him sign language. Early in the film the study’s founder, Columbia University professor Herbert Terrace, complains that the experiment is getting shortchanged by Nim’s first human surrogate Mom, a hippie who gives Nim pot and beer and breast feeds him (we’re saved from any visuals of the latter). Terrace abruptly removes Nim from her graces to ensure his new environ will include some scientific method.
Director James Marsh (the brilliant “Man on Wire”) would have been wiser to inject some outside scientific perspective of his own to further enrich this fascinating, heartfelt story. Sticking strictly to interviews among Nim’s various caretakers and teachers, Marsh provides an empathetic panorama of the roller coaster ride Nim embarks on after being taken away from his mother while only days old.
By the time he dies of a heart attack at 26 years old, you’re wondering what the average lifepan for a chimp is–thanks to Wikipedia (not Marsh) it’s 52. You’re also wondering about the status of medical testing on chimps after Terrace ends the experiment, since Nim spends an unfortunate spell in horrific captivity as the subject of vaccine testing. (Using chimps for research and toxicology testing, while banned in many Western countries, remains active in the U. S., where as of 2009 , 1300 chimps remain in invasive research. You’re welcome)
Nim’s post traumatic stress disorder from his days as a research subject is only made worse when he’s “rescued” to a solo life in “spacious digs” at Cleveland Amory’a reserve for battered equines. Humans don’t make out so well in Project Nim. An early cat fight among competing surrogate Moms serves as a silly distraction. Terrace seems stuck on publicity for publicity’s sake. Almost everyone gets nipped by Nim and when one teacher gets mauled in the face, the signing experiment is pulled. Chimps are inherently violent, much stronger than humans, and have in their nature the instinct to hunt and kill lower order primates and sometimes each other. It’s no wonder the House of Representatives banned their use as household pets in 2009.
Nim was not the first primate tested for sign language capabilities. Washoe was a chimp in the 1960s who learned hundreds of signs and even taught them to other chimps. Nim doesn’t make out so well once Terrace claimed his experiment “proved nothing.” Terrace was wrong. It actually proved a lot about humans and their ability to “project” Nim.
6.5 Apes out of 10
