Project Nim

Project Nim is a story about man and chimp in which chimp comes out of it well, man does not and, I’m warning you, it’s fascinating, but not pretty. The starting point is an Oklahoma lab in 1973 when Nim, a male baby chimp, is taken from his mother at a fortnight old and sent to be raised by a human family as part of an experiment to discover if another species can learn to communicate with us.

We follow Nim all the way, from the moment he is wrenched from his mother’s arms, through Seventies’ academia — a peculiarly hilarious time; Nim is fond of the odd spliff — and right to the end, by which time his helpless innocence has been fully exploited and science has lost interest.

This is a compelling and engrossing film but, like I said, it’s not pretty, and it will break your heart.