HBO’s ‘Chimp Crazy’ should make us all feel bad: Review

No, this is not the new “Tiger King.”
Let’s start there because HBO’s new documentary series “Chimp Crazy” is being billed as a spiritual sequel to the 2020 Netflix doc that became a pandemic sensation. “Tiger” had twists and turns, big characters and real mysteries to solve. It was deeply compelling. But in many instances viewers might have also felt, well, icky while watching the feud between animal collector Joe Exotic and conservationist Carole Baskin escalate all the way to murder-for-hire charges. Were we complicit in its sensationalism by tuning in? Probably.
“Chimp Crazy” (Sundays, 10 EDT/PDT, ★ out of four) asks us to be voyeurs once again, leering at owners of other exotic animals, now chimpanzees. Produced and directed by Eric Goode, who helmed “Tiger,” its primary focus is chimp owner Tonia Haddix, another larger-than-life personality. It’s no secret from the marketing that HBO is trying to turn “Chimp” into another “Tiger”-like phenomenon. It’s just as sensationalist as its predecessor, even if it’s on a gilded prestige premium network like HBO. And this time, it goes too far.
Over four episodes, “Chimp” follows Haddix’s story, and it is a deeply sad tale. A longtime animal lover from Florida, Haddix meets some chimps at a Missouri breeder and becomes obsessed, eventually uprooting her life to work in the chimp habitat. She especially bonds with Tonka, a former Hollywood ape who starred in multiple movies including 1997’s “Buddy,” with Alan Cumming (the actor and activist is prominently featured).
Haddix sees Tonka as her son, but when another employee at the complex contacts People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group, over concerns about the living conditions of the chimps, the notoriously litigious organization takes swift action to have the apes removed. Thus begins a yearslong battle between Haddix and PETA in the courts, for which she is significantly outmatched.
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Looking at a big-picture summary of “Chimp,” it seems typical of recent true-crime documentaries, which are in search of wilder and more outlandish narratives with every passing year. But this story isn’t just uncanny; it’s deeply tragic. And it didn’t really need to be told, at least not in this way.
Haddix and the other people (almost always women) who are featured as pet chimpanzee owners come off as deeply unwell, obsessed and potentially delusional about them. As experts explain, chimpanzees are small and manageable until they are about 5 years old, at which point they become 200-pound-plus wild animals kept in tight quarters among humans who aren’t trained to handle them. It’s all cute apes in strollers doing tricks for treats until the animals grow up and maim someone. Goode and the filmmakers seem to delight in telling stories of notorious chimp attacks, revisiting the gruesome 2009 incident in which Connecticut chimp Travis mauled Charla Nash, a friend of his owner.
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The story always comes back to Haddix, who ultimately does some very bad things (although not murder-for-hire) in her fight to keep Tonka. No eccentricity is spared by the probing lens of the camera: her lip injection and lash extension treatments, her stated preference for chimps over her own children, her perjury, or the rawness of her emotions. Does she need to be famous?
Haddix’s conflict with PETA has already made local and national news, including a Rolling Stone investigation that is particularly damning. Her actions have consequences, in part, because the documentarians feel compelled to report some things they witness to PETA. But once “Chimp” debuts, she will likely be the subject of ridicule and derision. The series points out there are limited regulations to police or prevent private chimp ownership. But is the way to encourage new laws about chimps (which seems to be Goode’s goal) to point and laugh at vulnerable people?
It’s telling, and deeply ethically suspect, that Goode couldn’t approach people like Haddix himself, not after “Tiger” brought a once-hidden subculture into the mainstream and turned its subjects into punchlines. Goode explains in the documentary that he hired a “proxy director” to interact with Haddix and the other subjects. There’s an argument to be made that he tricked them into revealing their lives for the entertainment of others. Haddix may have been looser-lipped on camera than many others in her position, but whose camera, exactly, did she think she was talking to?
It’s hard to classify “Chimp” as “good” or “bad” when it is mostly just deeply unsettling and upsetting. Yes, it has a narrative flow and pace that will keep you coming back for weekly episodes. Yes, it is fascinating.
But it’s not worth it.