Movie Review

Project Nim

A brilliant project gone dramatically wrong.

Release Date: 2011

Rating: ****

By Billy Keene: December 6, 2011

Chimpanzees are definitely intellectual and intelligent animals, but are they able to learn sign language and know what they are saying when they use it? I don’t think so. “Project Nim” is a documentary about a chimp named Nim Chimpsky who is raised as a human practically from birth. The chimp by the end of the documentary may be liked more than the other beings in it.

Nim was born in captivity in Oklahoma to a mother chimpanzee that had already had multiple of her newborns taken from her. She knew instantly what was happening. A few days after being born, Nim was recruited by Professor Herbert Terrace. He had one of his students, Stephanie LaFarge, to be Nim’s mother. As they were in the 70’s it seems to me that it was only natural that Ms. LaFarge breast-fed Nim and allowed him to occasionally drink beer and smoke pot.

In his early years, Nim was a very bright chimpanzee, as he had learned up to 125 signs within a couple years. He also learned how to use a toilet, although I’m sure he never knew why he would ever need to do that. It seemed that this project was going to be successful based on the early success.

As Roger Ebert says in his review of this movie I also call Nim “him” or “he” rather than “it” because the whole point of the movie is to show how human-like chimpanzees can be rather than just being thought of as wild animals. Even though the footage that we see in “Project Nim” is not all original filming of Nim, it is as close as they could get it to what it was originally like.

About half way through the documentary, the project started encountering problems. Nim started growing up. He got to about the teenage years for humans. Just as humans are, Nim became very argumentative and didn’t obey any of his handlers. To me this seemed like it was about time to stop the project and make the conclusion that chimpanzees can’t be raised as human beings because they are way too aggressive. But despite all the setbacks because of Nim’s aggressiveness, the project continued.

Later in the movie Nim bit one of his handlers’ cheeks. This was basically the last straw for that handler as Nim was constantly hitting and harassing that handler. Nim signed the sign for “sorry” but by this point it was too late and frankly I don’t think he really knew what he was saying. By this point in Nim’s life he already knew what he was supposed to do when he was getting “yelled” at. To him this was just a routine motion and I don’t even think he knew what he did wrong or what he meant by “sorry.” To him, saying “sorry” I think would be the same as a dog barking when you tell it to “speak.” It doesn’t know what the word “speak” really is but it knows what to do when it hears the word so it will either be pet or get a treat.

The whole end of the movie just shows Nim in captivity after the project is discontinued. It shows how sad he is being alone even though his new handlers still play around with him. One of the last things I remember happening is when the Professor comes back to him after so many years. Nim still remembers him and even holds a conversation with the Professor for a little while.

Despite Nim being able to remember the signs and being able to have a conversation with the Professor, I still don’t believe that Nim really knew what he was saying. To me sign language is based off of answering signs to other signs. Most of the time, a conversation in sign language would not make sense if it were translated exactly to oral words. Don’t hate me because I am kind of putting sign language, because I actually know quite a bit of it myself and actually really like sign language, but I am a really literal person and don’t think that it is possible for a Chimpanzee to be able to learn sign language and actually understand what it is saying and hold a real conversation with actual sign words.

Cast & Credits

Professor Terrace Himself

Dr. Lemmon Bern Cohen

Stephanie Reagan Leonard

Lab tech Bob Angelini

Roadside Attractions presents a film directed by James Marsh. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13 for Some Strong Language, Drug Content, Thematic Elements and Disturbing Images.