Project Nim review

Could scientists make an ape act like a human?

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It won’t ape Man On Wire’s Oscar-winning heights, but director James Marsh’s new doc has a more fascinating story: a baby chimp raised like a human child by hippie ’70s scientists.

Amazingly, ‘Nim Chimpsky’ (after Noam Chomsky) ate pizza, smoked joints, wore clothes and learned sign-language – but human neglect plunged him into a nightmare of loneliness and betrayal.

Exploring Nim’s touching, tragic life via vintage footage and Errol Morris-style interviews, Marsh’s sensitive doc is a light look at some dark clues to the kind of creatures we really are.