The DVD, Blu Ray, and TVD for the week of February 7, 2012

PROJECT NIM

*** (out of ****)

Project Nim is tasked with a pretty easy goal: get you to be interested in the story of a chimp who…do I really need to go on? It’s about a chimp. Chimps, as you may well know from 2011’s other primate doc, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, are just like humans in every way. They talk less, laugh more, and throw their shit at whoever they deem necessary. I prefer them in diapers, top hats, and monocles, but even butt-ass naked, chimps are the true kings of the jungle. Lions can eat the poop that just got thrown in their face. Everything is perfect in chimpland, at least until stupid humans get involved.

In 1973, supervillain Herb Terrace decided to take a newborn chimp away from his mother and raise it as a human. He wanted to teach it sign language, and to see not just if chimps could repeat signs, but actually communicate using complex sentences. He took Nim to the house of some hippy chick he had banged in the past. I guess he figured that he had come up with one of the worst ideas of all time, and a fucking hippy would be the only kind of person to go along with it.

 

From there, throughout his 26 years, Nim is transferred from home to home, from surrogate parent to surrogate parent, each with their own parentin’/sciencein’ strategies, and reasons for being involved with the project. The only thing each “family member” had in common was that they were incredibly selfish, and had absolutely no idea what science was.

We’ll start with Stephanie LaFarge, also known as the hippy. She brought Nim to her house with her new husband and seven children, where he was raised as one of her own. Because she was a hippy, this meant no rules, probably no bathing, and certainly nothing scientific, meaning that, so far, the only reason Nim was taken away from his real mother was so this lady could be less bored. Just so you don’t think I’m unfairly judging this woman as a caretaker, she spends most of her screen time discussing the mutual sexual attraction between her and Nim, who was her surrogate son. Oh, and a chimpanzee.

Busting down the door to save the day was an 18 year old by the name of Laura-Ann Pettito, who’s last name looks like it’s normal, but, when if you say it out loud, it sounds like you’re an idiot who doesn’t know how to say potato. Strike one. Laura-Ann, despite her refusal to wear shoes (were shoes invented in 1980?), is much less of a hippy, and therefore we’re led to believe that she’s a more qualified caretaker. Also, she understands that things like “recording stuff sometimes” can occasionally be necessary throughout the scientific process. Alas, eventually we find out that she is a just dumb kid who is in love with her evil teacher and is completely out of her league.

And then there is the granddaddy of them all. The ladies want him, the men want to be him, and the chimps are the only ones smart enough to realize what a creepy asshole he is. His name is Herb Terrace, and he immediately takes over for Billy Mitchell as “Documentary’s Greatest Douche Bag.” The way people are portrayed in docs, even in reality TV, always has to be taken with a grain of salt, but Terrace seems to love the role he has played in these people’s lives, almost like he’s such a badass that you have no choice but to forgive his faults. Instead of actually being a badass, though, he comes off as an ego-maniacal prick who should not even be allowed around people, much less being in charge of people, of animals, or of science experiments. He lives for the camera, he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else around him, and he gets to a point where he is hard to watch.

 

But that’s what Project Nim gives us. It’s a movie about a scientific endeavor that gives us a little science experiment of our own. When it’s time to put our shit aside and make someone or something else the priority, can we do it? The answer is unequivocally no. The people in Nim’s life are surprised that, as he grows up, he begins to get violent. Not only has he been mistreated and emotionally abused and confused his entire life, but he’s a chimp! What the hell did you expect? You taught him sign language, so as he reaches his sexual and physical peak, he’ll channel his rage and frustration through writing sonatas? Or he’ll get angry and violent, as is his nature? But just like you shouldn’t be surprised when it turns out Nim is and always will be a chimp, you can’t be surprised when it turns out all of the humans are nothing but humans, flawed because that’s all they know. Nim doesn’t grow up to be a product of environment, full of selfishness and vindictiveness. He grows up to be angry about his environment, to the point he has no choice but to literally grab these parental figures by the ankles and swing them around his cage. You can’t blame him because he’s a chimp, but you wouldn’t really blame him anyway. And that’s what keeps Project Nim so interesting: when you’re “protagonist” is incapable of making moral or just decisions, it makes the “antagonists” that much more despicable. Long live Caesar.

 

ALSO RELEASED:

ANONYMOUS

A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR CHRISTMAS

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART 1

-Ryan Haley