James Marsh’s anticipated follow up to his 2008 Academy Award-winning documentary, Man on Wire, is the extraordinary and riveting tale of a special chimpanzee named Nim.
The documentary profiles a 1970s social experiment and the social impact that researchers and a chimpanzee had with each other after prolonged interaction.
Project Nim was the brainchild of Herbert Terrace, professor at Columbia University, who wanted to know if it was possible for humans and chimpanzees to communicate with each other and if they could articulate what they were thinking.
The project aimed to expand human communication and to see how and where human language came from and how it evolved.
The film uses lots of archival footage that Columbia University made during the project.
In an interview-type style, each person involved with Project NIM was interviewed and gave their point of view about the experiment during the time they were involved.
As the film begins, we see how a chimp is taken away from its own mother; Nim is placed with a former student’s family and treated like a two-year-old human baby.
The whole point was to immerse Nim in human life and to have him to learn sign language. An incredible bond was formed between the family and Nim.
However, after time, the relationship became strained.
Having her own family and the madness of a primate running rampant quickly dissolved the relationship and the experiment was taken over by another student - a younger, more able student of Terrace’s.
With a new pet student and location, the professor was able to set up house.
Great gains were made, and Nim was able to learn sign language and interact with humans.
However, as Nim grew older and more physically unpredictable, it became more and more apparent that the chimp’s future was uncertain in human care. 
Professor Terrace decision to end the project and find a new home for Nim was met with animosity and anger. Two sides were formed - those that had real interest and love for Nim and those that only had a professional interest.
Ultimately, Nim, the adorable chimpanzee, is caught in a very human world; a world of love, hate, anger, lust, greed and personal advancement.
It is no wonder that he mimics all of these traits, and for that he is locked up.
Watching Project Nim made me think about how far we have come from looking like monkeys - but there sure are a lot of us that still act like them.

Published in Volume 66, Number 10 of The Uniter (November 2, 2011)