Rating: 3.5/5
Allan goes running one morning, only to be hit by a truck. The hospital performs spinal surgery, saving Allan’s life but rendering him quadriplegic. Allan’s mother tries to tend to his every need—for those she can’t, she hires a nurse named Maryanne to assist.
Allan, finding the adjustment to his new life unmanageable, attempts to take his life. Geoffrey, a friend of Allan’s, suggests a program that trains capuchins to assist people with disabilities. But Geoffrey has an ulterior motive. He has been experimenting with capuchins in his lab, trying to create a serum that makes them more intelligent. Geoffrey’s efforts in the lab have hit a wall, so he wants to test his capuchin, Ella, in another environment. So, he gives Ella to a woman who specializes in training the monkeys, and she helps train Ella for the job.
What could go wrong?
The movie gives us a heads up before it begins that Helping Hands at Boston Univeristy trained the capuchins featured to assist people with disabilities and that none were harmed, despite appearances. It also ensures in the credits that no cases like this have ever occurred in their program. Due to states outlawing primates in homes and the Americans with Disabilities Act recognizing only dogs and mini horses as service animals, the program has since pivoted to tech/AI solutions.
The film contrasts how the scientists who train capuchins to assist people with disabilities draw out the heretofore unseen potential in their intelligence vs. Geoffrey’s method of injecting it into the animal and asking it to play chess. It speaks to our limited understanding of what intelligence is. Behavioral scientists have long limited their scope on what constitutes intelligence in animals. Meanwhile, we continue to witness complex rituals, linguistic patterns, and mannerisms that we previously only thought humans were capable of.
Like other work by Romero, it also explores hubris and the cost of wanton experimentation with only an eye on the bottom line and not on the ramifications.
You’ll be disappointed if you watch this expecting a schlocky horror movie. This film is sci-fi horror in the most classic sense. The film dedicates the time to letting us get to know our characters and what is at play. The movie’s first half could easily be mistaken for a lighthearted drama if not for Geoffrey’s monkeying around 😏.
Though the characters treat Ella as the film’s antagonist, she is not the villain. She is a product of the experimentation done on her and the hostile environment of Allan’s home. Her sensitivity to Allan’s every need creates a codependence where his anger becomes hers and hers his.
Actor talk: Stephen Root appears as Dean Burbage, the earliest movie role I’ve seen him in. Jason Beghe seems like such a boy scout, so every swear word out of his mouth sounds like his first time saying it. Boo, who plays Ella, is so sweet and such a tremendous animal actor. The filmmaking ensures only a few cutaways occur when she performs complex tasks so we can see what she is capable of.
Like many directors, Romero was constantly frustrated with the studio’s handling of the film. Although this was only his second studio film, Romero returned to independent films for the remainder of his career.
Because of studio meddling, we must evaluate the movie as it is rather than what Romero wanted. Thankfully, it’s still a pretty great movie.