Movie

Project Nim

2011 · 93 min

A quietly devastating true story that starts playful and curious, then curdles into something deeply sad and unsettling to sit through.

Directed by: James Marsh
Genres: Documentary
Starring: Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen, Reagan Leonard

Tagline: The world will be a different place once you've seen it through his eyes.
Overview: From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.

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Directed by: James Marsh
Genres: Documentary
Starring: Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen, Reagan Leonard

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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone: melancholicstrength 3 of 3
darkstrength 2 of 3
earneststrength 2 of 3
cynicalstrength 1 of 3
Pacing: measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: identity
isolation
science
betrayal
loneliness
Places: big city
countryside
Era: period
Audience: adult
Form: true story
nonlinear
Content intensity: Gore none
Language mild
Violence mild
Sex mild

All scales, 0 to 10

Scales, 0 to 10
Scale	Value	0 to 10
Action	1
Horror	2
Humour	3
Realism	9
Romance	1
Tension	4
Darkness	7
Complexity	5
Emotional weight	8

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Details

Genres: documentary
Directed by: James Marsh
Starring: Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen, Reagan Leonard, Nim Chimpsky, Stephanie LaFarge, Herbert Terrace, Wer LaFarge, Jenny Lee
Music: Dickon Hinchliffe
Cinematography: Michael Simmonds
Runtime: 93 min
Country: United Kingdom
Languages: English

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Project Nim

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