Project Nim
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: July 8, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
31
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 16, 2011
Extraordinarily engaging but surprisingly sobering. Read full review
100
New York PostKyle SmithJul 8, 2011
Deep, disturbing and funny. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn LevyJul 21, 2011
It's one of those works that presents the deeds of both humans and animals and leaves you wondering which is the more civilized. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasJul 7, 2011
To an equal extent, Project Nim shows the human capacity for cruelty and narcissism as well as compassion and selflessness. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 14, 2011
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 full review
90
SlateDana StevensJul 9, 2011
I'll be forever grateful to this movie for introducing me to Nim's story, a tale so powerful and suggestive that it functions as a myth about the ever-mysterious relationship between human beings and animals. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJul 7, 2011
There is no doubt that Nim was exploited, and also no doubt that he was loved. Mr. Marsh, by allowing those closest to Nim plenty of room to explain themselves, examines the moral complexity of this story without didacticism. He allows the viewer, alternately appalled, touched and fascinated, to be snagged on some of its ethical thorns. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 12, 2011
There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeJul 21, 2011
In art there are no rules, just stuff that works. And for the second film in a row, Marsh has created a movie we can't keep our eyes off. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyJul 21, 2011
Nim is as unforgettable as the treatment of him is unspeakable. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 14, 2011
An engrossing and enraging drama of one chimpanzee and his life's journey across a landscape of human folly. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJul 7, 2011
The movie suggests that humans benefitted little from Project Nim, and Nim himself not at all. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 7, 2011
Project Nim is practically irresistible. The story keeps getting odder and richer and more complicated. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJul 2, 2011
Here's a documentary so slick, novel, touching and outrageous that your first thought might be "This has to be fake." Read full review
85
NPRElla TaylorJul 8, 2011
Nim's suffering is heartbreaking, but Marsh's melodramatic style, with its re-enactments and intense score, sometimes feels bombastic and overblown for a group of people who, aside from the frighteningly detached and morally careless Terrace, seem to be garden-variety neurotics and narcissists, more clueless than willfully cruel. Read full review
85
MovielineMichelle OrangeJul 7, 2011
"A chimp could not have a better mother," Terrace declares of his decision. The people in this film say stuff like that a lot. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJul 8, 2011
The big news here is not simply that Nim was traumatized, it's that Nim was signing that he was traumatized. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnJul 6, 2011
The movie works best when probing the nature of human interactions with Nim: He appears to form a close friendship with the stoner psych major Bob Ingersoll, not only foraging for food with him but also sharing joints. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJul 2, 2011
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 full review
80
EmpireDan JolinAug 8, 2011
Gripping, heart-wrenching, powerful and a sad indictment of scientific practice, which shows that 'human' and 'humane' are all-too-often mutually exclusive. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 14, 2011
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 full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJul 8, 2011
If only this were a media-fueled tall tale and not one poor creature's lifelong nightmare. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderAndrea GronvallJul 7, 2011
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 full review
80
Village VoiceRob NelsonJul 5, 2011
Marsh's film remains a deeply haunting portrait of the unbridgeable gap between kindred species. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 2, 2011
While this is fascinating material, it's the flawed human behavior it exposes that makes the story so compelling. And yet what elevates Marsh's film is the even-handedness of his perspective. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeJul 2, 2011
A provocative and surprisingly emotional saga that ranges from wrenching to downright hilarious as it spans more than a quarter-century of unpredictable twists, "Nim" reaches far beyond mere scientific curiosity to become compelling human drama. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineSteve RamosJul 2, 2011
British filmmaker James Marsh recreates this tale of an ambitious primate language study through traditional face-the-camera interviews, clever graphics and dramatic recreations. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 2, 2011
You get a bad feeling early in Project Nim, the brilliant, traumatizing documentary by James Marsh (Man on Wire). Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 28, 2011
An absorbing, agonizing documentary about ambition, lust and anthropomorphism at their most heedless, records suffering and manipulation so extreme that description can barely do them justice. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliJul 14, 2011
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, which comes across as a narcissistic, hedonistic, self-absorbed, neglectful, anthropomorphizing and arrogant bunch of hippie-dippy know-it-alls. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 7, 2011
For the most part, though, the real people - the movers and shakers of Nim's world - are there to speak for themselves in the present as well as the past, and the main ones are, with a conspicuous exception, a sorry, self-serving lot. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichJul 5, 2011
The good news is that the film's stylistic excesses don't negate the many fascinating aspects of Nim's story. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerJul 3, 2011
To drive home the pathos of Nim's mistreatment, James Marsh frequently makes questionable use of the creature's apparent similarity to human beings, trading complex analysis for easy sentiment. Read full review
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