Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Just perfect...

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

English screenwriter and director James Marsh's third documentary feature is inspired by real events in the life of a Chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky and is an adaptation of a book from 2008 called "Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human" by author Elizabeth Hess. It premiered in the World Cinema Documentary Competition section at the 27th Sundance Film Festival in 2011, was shot on locations in America and is a UK production which was produced by English producer Simon Chinn. It tells the story about a primate named Nim Chimpsky who was born in the early 1960s and who in the early 1970s moved in with an American family who were assigned to treat him as humanely as possible and to teach him to communicate with sign language. Distinctly and precisely directed by English filmmaker James Marsh, this finely paced documentary which is narrated from multiple viewpoints and at times from the main subject's point of view, draws a profoundly involving and heartrending portrayal of an animal's interaction with humans during a scientific project and his ability to adapt in an unfamiliar environment. While notable for its reverent cinematography by cinematographer Michael Simmonds, production design by production designer Markus Kirschner, film editing by film editor Jinx Godfrey and use of sound, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about the life of a Chimpanzee and the people he acquainted which underlines the exceptional aspects of cinema and where it exceeds its potential, depicts a perspicaciously humane study of character and contains a great and timely score by composer Dickon Hinchliffe. This informatively biographical, distinguishably sociological and densely historic though present retelling of real events which is set in the United States in the late 20th century and where the distinctions and similarities between human beings and chimpanzees becomes as apparent as the ricochet consequences of attempting to integrate and humanize an innate non-conformist, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, rhythmic continuity, use of archive footage and the narration of the interviewees' as a narrative device, the introduction of a man named Bob Ingersoll and the many charming, humorous, unsettling and genuinely gripping scenes of the socially adept Nim whose graceful presence lingers and affirms the right of animals to be treated with humanity. A distinctly communicative, harmonically photographic and admirable work of art.

Where does a chimpanzee fit in the scheme of nature in relation to human beings? If you'll pardon me a crude analogy: If the evolutionary chain were a movie theater and humans occupy the front row, primates might place two rows behind us. We are a tiny fraction away from having the same DNA and when we look at them we can see that they are, basically, a savage version of what we use to be. Yet, in their eyes you can see that their thinking patterns must match ours in some fashion. What that fashion is exactly remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. What can they learn? Can they learn the way humans can? Are they communicating on our scale? Can they be taught from a young age and adapt just like a human child? These questions were the focal point of a now-legendary experiment begun in 1973 and headed by a Columbia psychology professor named Herbert Terrace to see if an infant Chimpanzee could be raised in a normal human household and could be taught to communicate. The chimp was forcibly taken from his mother mere days after birth and given the name Nim Chimpsky (we learn the heartbreaking fact that this was the sixth child that this particular mother has had taken away and we see her in silhouette mourning the loss). Nim first lived in a brownstone in Manhatten with a married couple and their children. He wore clothes, he played with the pets; his human mother let him drink beer and smoke pot (this was the early 70s). She even breast-fed him. Most importantly, he was taught functional amounts of sign language. Nim's education in sign language was at the core of the project, even though one of the family members curiously points out that no one in the family was actually fluent in sign language to begin with.The documentary Project Nim follows the progress of that experiment in reenactments and still photographs, but mostly through eyewitness testimony from the researchers who spent time working with Nim during the project. Some of the footage that we see might fit right in on a television sitcom or one of those shows from the 60s like "Daktari" or "Gentle Ben". We see little Nim rolling around on the floor playing with the kids, the dog and then the cat. It is all very cute, but one can't watch the footage and not be concerned. Nim, after all, an animal with violent tendencies.Nim, through his training, seems perfectly happy, which is ironic when you compare him with some of the humans that are caring for him. Many of whom seem to have deep personality flaws. Dr. Terrace seems to evoke the quality of an father who raises a child from a distance, and the research assistants, Stephanie and Laura-Ann Petitto seem willing to forgive some of Nim's more aggressive tendencies and outbursts as he approaches maturity.What becomes abundantly clear as Nim grows is something that Terrace doesn't seem to have considered: Chimps are cute and cuddly as babies, but as adults they are unmanageable. They don't know their own strength which is five times that of a human. We see talking-head interviews with many of the key participants in the experiment who show us scars from having been attacked and bitten by Nim during their time with him. One, in particular, was the most loving of all of Nim's parents and received a nasty bite through her cheek, not during a moment of violence but seemingly out of the clear blue sky.I don't know if it was the intention of James Marsh, the director, but humankind isn't presented well at all in this movie. Nim is only a product of his circumstances - pulled away from his mother to spend the first half of his life in the spotlight, but when that spotlight is gone, what then? He's like a flavor-of-the-month celebrity who's light faded and everyone moved on to something else. So, knowing what we know about primate behavior, we kind of sense where the movie is going. Nim, through his work with the researchers eventually learned some 150 words of sign language and proved that a chimp could be taught. However, as Nim grows he becomes more aggressive and his wilder nature takes over and the story takes a turn that is achingly sad. He can't live with humans because he's too aggressive. He can't live with other chimps because he's been raised in the manner of a human being. Nim's contribution to scientific research has been incredible, but rather than being celebrated, he was shut away for the rest of his life and more or less forgotten. Thanks for nothing.

Ostensibly a documentary about the world's most famous chimpanzee, who was taught to communicate with humans via sign language during a university experiment of the 1970s, PROJECT NIM is in fact about human failings. It's another nature-themed documentary that, along with the likes of BLACKFISH and THE COVE, makes you despair for mankind.The story starts out well, with the impossibly cute baby chimp brought up as a human. Soon, though, the behaviour of some of the "scientists" looking after Nim begins to grate; some of them are a little too involved with their subject, while others are plain creepy. Later, Nim suffers a huge betrayal, and at this point the documentary takes a downward turn into one of the most depressing ever.Hardly a heartwarming story then, in that it focuses on misery and despair for the majority of the running time, but nevertheless an important story that serves to highlight man's inhumanity towards the world he inhabits.

I can not believe that anyone could say this was a great movie. What they did to Nim was horrible, and they proved absolutely nothing as far as I could see. If they wanted to show you how to ruin an animal's life it would get a 10 out of 10.Once they were done using him they abandon him to bared cages and chores. I'm still not sure what they expected making the movie, other than to confirm humans are the animals, and not the superior race at all.So they made money on a book, on a movie and the only really important cost was only a chimps life, and least we not forget giving him pot and alcohol.Awesome job guys!