SummaryAs a student in 1970s Oklahoma, Janis Carter took a job caring for Lucy, a chimp raised as a human by psychologists Maurice and Jane Temerlin. But when Lucy reached adolescence, the Temerlins realized her size and strength made her too dangerous to cohabitate with humans and devised a plan to take Lucy to Gambia, where she would be taught to live... Read More
Directed By:Alex Parkinson
Written By:Alex Parkinson
Lucy The Human Chimp
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May 5, 2021
75
Rarely, however, are such stories as emotionally laden as that told in Lucy the Human Chimp, a documentary ostensibly about a science experiment but which quickly evolves into something both heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once.
Apr 29, 2021
70
Lucy the Human Chimp is a creative assemblage of sundry parts: The archival footage, of which there is a wealth; the news coverage given Lucy when she was a celebrity; and extensive restagings and re-enactments, a device that in many documentaries is either stiff or profoundly unreal but under Alex Parkinson’s direction—and with Lorna Nickson Brown in the role of Janis Carter—rings true.
Apr 29, 2021
50
By turns alarming and poignant, Alex Parkinson’s infuriatingly deferential film recounts how Carter — passionately attached to Lucy and admittedly clueless about how to facilitate her adjustment — abandoned her life to live with Lucy on a remote island. Her devotion is extraordinary, but her obliviousness is shocking.
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Production Company:
- KEO Films
- Channel 4 Television
Release Date:Apr 29, 2021
Duration:1 h 8 m
Awards
Royal Television Society, UK
• 1 Nomination
News & Documentary Emmy Awards
• 1 Nomination




























