Project Nim 2011

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Here's a documentary so slick, novel, touching and outrageous that your first thought might be "This has to be fake." Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: You end up fearing for the humans who contact him. At the same time, you feel his rage. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Mr. Marsh, by allowing those closest to Nim plenty of room to explain themselves, examines the moral complexity of this story without didacticism. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: The good news is that the film's stylistic excesses don't negate the many fascinating aspects of Nim's story. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Marsh's documentaries are inspired fusions of content and style, and here, the artistry intensifies the pain. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: 'Project Nim,' an enthralling and appalling documentary by James Marsh, chronicles the collision of two species. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Project Nim borrows a page or nine from the Errol Morris handbook, crafting its extraordinary story out of an operatic mix of crisply framed interviews, archival footage, and well-staged recreations. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: At times hilarious but ultimately heartbreaking, "Project Nim" is a great chronicle of the 1970s and all the nutty ideas that implies; academia in particular comes in for a hard reckoning. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Marsh tells this story clearly and sympathetically, and he has the backlog of film and the witnesses to do so. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Like the experiment itself, "Project Nim" morphs from something inspiring and often humorous to a pointed and disturbing portrait of arrogance run amok. Greed and glory end up overriding decency and altruism, and it's heartbreaking to watch. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Sexual politics, family dynamics, the debate over heredity versus environment, and the dubious ethics of scientific research on animals are rigorously explored in this ambitious, bittersweet work. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "Project Nim" is practically irresistible. The story keeps getting odder and richer and more complicated. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: For a film where so many people seem, in varying degrees, culpable, Marsh indulges in very little finger-pointing. He doesn't need to. The indignities are hiding in plain sight. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Project Nim, a fascinating and in many ways tragic documentary, takes us back to one of the high-water marks of the apes-are-people-too era. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: The film as a whole maintains a precarious but rewarding balance between multi-generational soap opera and simplistic animal-rights agitprop. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: This haunting life story is an exquisite example of non-fiction filmmaking as full-bodied, emotionally complex drama. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: What makes this film especially engrossing is that what happened between that chimp and the humans with whom he spent his life in intimate contact turns out to be only half the story that Marsh, who directed the electrifying "Man on Wire," has to tell. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A documentary detailing man's inhumanity to beast, "Project Nim" ends up going past that to ask a deeper, disturbing question: Just who is the man, and who is the beast? Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Marsh never speaks on or off camera, but his editing of the testimony makes clear his belief that in trying to make Nim more human, his teachers made themselves less so. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: If only this were a media-fueled tall tale and not one poor creature's lifelong nightmare. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Brilliant, provocative, clear of eye and heavy of heart... Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Nim is as unforgettable as the treatment of him is unspeakable. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A very absorbing film. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A darkly hilarious social portrait of the bizarre alternate universe of 1970s academia and an extraordinary biography of a non-human individual, on whom all sorts of human desires and ideologies were projected. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: After watching "Project Nim," a distressing portrait of a misguided 1970s language experiment, you'll be glad you're not a chimp in a cage. But you might want to revoke your membership in the human race. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: It's a gripping, unsentimental, at times unbearably sad real-life drama about an animal torn from his own world and stranded in the human one. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: This many-faceted time capsule sheds little light, but buried inside it are vexing questions and the still-beating heart of a special creature. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: For the second film in a row, Marsh has created a movie we can't keep our eyes off. Read more

Leah Rozen, TheWrap: Project Nim nimbly serves up a profoundly sad tale that raises as many thought-provoking questions as it answers. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: You're left with the impression that, despite not being able to grasp basic human grammar, perhaps Nim was unwittingly conditioned into understanding the concept of love. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: A provocative and surprisingly emotional saga that ranges from wrenching to downright hilarious as it spans more than a quarter-century of unpredictable twists. Read more

Rob Nelson, Village Voice: Marsh's film remains a deeply haunting portrait of the unbridgeable gap between kindred species. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Marsh ... masterfully spins a harrowing tale of human arrogance that eventually gives way to cruelty bordering on the pathological. Read more