Project Nim

Project Nim (2011), documentary. This movie takes a look back at a 1970s experiment in which a chimpanzee named Nim was taken away from his mother at age two weeks and "adopted" by a human family. The human parents, Stephanie and Wer, were not very well equipped to carry out this project; for one thing, they were supposed to teach Nim sign language, and no one in the family was fluent in sign language. They even gave Nim alcohol and marijuana. Soon Herb Terrace, Stephanie's boss, decided to take Nim out of her care. From that point on, Nim had a series of human teachers, all trying to teach him sign language. At the same time, Nim was getting larger and more dangerous. (He frequently bit his teachers.) In 1977, at about age 4, Nim was returned to the chimp habitat he had been taken from as a baby. Later, in 1982, in a horrific development, the chimps were sold to a medical lab for experimentation. The film continues, documenting the life of this badly mistreated chimp. All in all, this movie is a devastating indictment of man's inhumanity to chimps -- and most other animals. Subtitles and closed captions are both offered on the disc. Grade: B