This movie will probably break your heart.

The basic synopsis is as follows. In the 70s, a Columbia linguistics professor with a douchey combover decides he wants to get in on the craze of teaching non-human primates sign language. Disinterested in doing the actual work himself, he acquires a 2-week old chimp and farms the duties out to a former student and paramour. She is asked to raise the chimp as if it were just another child in her Upper West Side brownstone. In time, the professor chooses another student/paramour to head up the experiment and wrenches the chimp from his “family” to a rented mansion upstate.

This is not Nim’s last move. I won’t spoil further, but the professor’s loss of interest in his subject causes no end of grief for Nim, and for us in the audience. In our screening, one of the researchers who worked with Nim was present, and he made a little speech before the film. “This is a hard movie. It gets better, but this is hard.”

The documentary is well-made, and full of video of Nim trying to navigate the world of people with varying levels of success. There are tons of interesting interviews with his trainers, and his human families that illuminate the porous nature of the species barrier. These interviews also shine a light on the incredible dickishness of Columbia linguistics profs with male pattern baldness. Seriously, you will come to hate this guy. Billy Mitchell levels of hate.

I can’t recommend it highly enough, if you have a heart and some curiosity about the difference between language and communication, between study and exploitation. I think it will be distributed in the fall, but probably only to art house screens in college towns, but it’s worth the parking ticket.