Project Nim Reviews
The Patriot Ledger
If there's one thing Marsh knows, it's how to reach your deepest emotions. He did it with 'Man on Wire,' and he does it again here.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Concrete Playground
A fascinating, unflinching and tragic documentary about the chimpanzee we tried to make human.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
EDGE Boston
A tragic chronicle of animal abuse.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
LarsenOnFilm
Like an orphan out of Dickens, Nim is a sorrowful figure buffeted by the winds of the greedy, selfish and more powerful...
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Creative Loafing
One of the 10 best films of 2011.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
What Culture
This is one of those great documentaries which could be transposed almost without change into a heartbreaking Hollywood tearjerker.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Top CriticThis haunting life story is an exquisite example of non-fiction filmmaking as full-bodied, emotionally complex drama.
Antagony & Ecstasy
Nim's story is so fascinating and telling... that it would probably be impossible for even the very worst of filmmakers to screw it up, and Marsh is not the worst of filmmakers.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
Flicks.co.nz
Writer-director James Marsh mines yet another long-forgotten slice of '70s madness.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Mark Leeper's Reviews
It is the sad story of an animal whose fate is left in the hands of people--some well-meaning, some not so much--who are error-prone, unprepared for dealing with a chimpanzee, and often uncaring.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
Laramie Movie Scope
In a way, Nim's life journey mirrors our own, particularly if we end up alone, no longer having much control over what happens to us.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
The Age (Australia)
Tales of the attacks Nim inflicted on his many carers are horrific, but there is a pervasive sense there was nothing else they could have expected.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Project Nim nimbly serves up a profoundly sad tale that raises as many thought-provoking questions as it answers.
Matt's Movie Reviews
This tale of a hard done by chip places a light on when unethical scientific research and the post 1960s counterculture combine to create an experiment done wrong in Project Nim.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
...succeeds as theater, as entertainment, but it doesn't really attempt what Terrace tried, in his admittedly morally clumsy way. What is the light in those feral eyes and what does it mean? Can we ever hope to know?
Full Review
| Original Score: 86/100
The Age (Australia)
The film teases us with a paradox: arguably Nim's keepers were wrong to try to endow their protege with human attributes, but can we empathise with his suffering without making the same mistake?
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
At the Movies (Australia)
Funny at times, but also deeply sad, it's a truly fascinating and well made documentary.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
The Age (Australia)
Marsh's film is as much a study of how we behave as a species as it is of what happens to Nim. And we don't come off particularly well.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Trespass
Project Nim tells a sweet, strange and sad story of an incredible creature that will touch even the hardest of hearts.
Herald Sun (Australia)
A bizarre, captivating and somewhat sad new documentary.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
