If you really want to give your brain a squirt, try watching Kevin James' Zookeeper and Project NIM within hours of each other. The only thing sadder than those "funny" talking animals is the sad and despicable story of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee and subject of a radical social experiment in the 1970s to test the limits of animal language acquisition. It was the old "nature vs. nurture" debate put into drastic effect, as Nim was placed in a human home and treated essentially like a human for years. The project was the brainchild of Dr. Herbert Terrace, a ragged shrew of a man who comes off looking like an egotistical, skirt chasing dope. He seems far more interested in nailing Nim's vivacious teachers rather than spending any time studying his development. And that's where the first mistake begins as Nim, being taught to act as humans do, is immediately subject to the human failings of his mentors.
James Marsh, who last helmed the breathtaking high wire documentary Man on Wire
, places Nim as the centerpiece of his own dark fairy tale. Snatched from his mother almost immediately after being born, his life would be riddled with bouts of separation anxiety as he's ripped from home to home and the humans he's grown to love. Treated like royalty in his first location, the home of a high class hippie family that let him have whatever he wants, the second mistake is made as Nim learns arrogance early on. He's taught human sign language, gaining the ability to signal for a number of things he wants. If he's hungry, he signs for it. He wants a banana? He signs for it. He wants to hug the cat? He signs for it. Nim learns quickly how to get what he wants, but has no idea how to ask for it or the meaning of anything. This would prove to be a deadly error later.The 70s were the heart of the liberation movement, and likely the only time period where an experiment like this could take place without much complaint. Nim was a symbol of America's freedom of expression, our willingness to defy authority in some ways. But he also became a symbol of just how moronic those ideals can be when taken too far and managed by the incapable. Regardless of how much Nim learned, he was still an animal that would grow and get more dangerous.
As the project wound down, and Nim had been forcibly removed from his life of "luxury" and away from the people who cared for him, Nim's worth dwindled. No more commercials, no more data to be gained. He was just a big, disgruntled, dangerous ape. The people who raised him almost all meant well, and some legitimately loved him. But through their own failings they were all complicit in the despair his life would become.
Project NIM, essentially about a chimp's ability to act like a human being, is really a uniquely human story, crafted with Marsh's typical flair for the dramatic and attention to detail. Unlike Man on Wire, there's no clear admiration for any of his subjects here. There's pity at the heart of this story, mixed with a touch of disdain.
