‘Chimp Crazy’ Is Delivering on ‘Crazy’

By Alison Lanier | TV | August 27, 2024 |

By Alison Lanier | TV | August 27, 2024 |

After watching the first episode, I very generously labeled Eric Goode’s new show, Chimp Crazy, as a tragedy. I wrote about the documentary subject, Tonia Haddix, as a woman who was so blinded by her love for her pet chimpanzees (she repeatedly tells the camera she loves the chimps more than her children) that she couldn’t understand how she could also be hurting them.

Well, here I am cooking up a feast of my own words and getting ready to eat them, because Tonia Haddix is turning out to be a very different type of character. Tonia is living in a fantasy world of her own creation where everyone but her is so heartless, stupid, and greedy that they just can’t understand her big heart and hard work. I’m not challenging the hard work element because she certainly works hard: trafficking endangered species, feeding McDonald’s to her captive chimps, and lying her way through a lawsuit she clearly doesn’t grasp.

At the end of episode one, we saw Tonia’s chimps being rescued by PETA from clearly inhumane conditions at Tonia’s Missouri facility. By all appearances, it was a happy ending. But of course, episode one wouldn’t let us have that. One chimp was missing: It’s Tonka, the beloved movie-star chimp.

Tonia spends most of episode two making stumbling egregious lies — to the court, to the filmmakers, and probably to herself as well. One of those lies probably includes: I am in the right. There’s a real Trumpishness about her, as she perjures herself and skirts the law in countless other ways and insists that This is America! The legal system will protect me, or it’s broken! It feels too much like a microcosmic version of recent political delusions fostered in the name of ego and calling them virtue.

And here’s the thing: This is Tonia, in front of the camera, very deliberately portraying herself as the hero. She can’t seem to decide what kind of hero she wants to be though, and keeps switching what story she tells: Tonka is alive or Tonka is dead, she’s getting one over on PETA or she’s heartbroken. One thing remains consistent, and that’s that, in her mind, no one has any right to question her.

There’s a telling moment early on in episode two, when actor Alan Cumming, who kickstarted the rescue efforts of Tonia’s chimps, is looking at old footage of himself acting alongside Tonka. He has fond memories of that project; he feels privileged to have had the chance to work with the animals, with their human-like expressiveness and emotional attachments. But he recognizes that his feelings are hypocritical, because now —decades later— he understands that the use of chimps in movies was not at all a good thing for the chimps involved. Two things can be true; a level of bittersweet nuance can exist. But not for Tonia.

It becomes about the diligent, patient, thankless work that goes into stopping such reckless, self-indulgent, and straight-up stupid behavior from one person determined that the rules don’t apply to her. Again, if that sounds like it has an easy political corollary, I’d have to agree with you.

I got so angry watching this. It’s wild, well-made, and precise — a well-done docuseries, without a doubt — but I can’t recommend it for easy or even casual viewing. It’s an endeavor. I had to look up the ending to the story via news stories related to the case just to reassure myself that the arc of the universe bends toward justice.

New episodes stream on Max every Sunday night.