Gigi & Nate

This is a sweet story of how a capuchin monkey, called Gigi, helps a young man, called Nate, after he becomes paralysed and needs to use a wheelchair. He experiences a lot of physical pain, especially during physiotherapy. Gigi helps him cope with the pain and also assists him, so he is able to enjoy life again. I don't know how accurately this film portrayed how a service monkey can assist and it seemed very one sided, portraying animal right activists as nasty people. In general, I do agree that wild animals should not be kept as pets or used as service animals. In this story the monkey was rescued from a 'zoo' then trained as a service animal. People who have a service dog keep it on a leash in public, so Nate was irresponsible not having Gigi tethered.

Some say this movie is based on a real young man and his helper monkey. I prefer the term "inspired by" because so much of the story is changed for this movie. The one constant is that the young man was accidentally paralyzed and an organization that trains service animals provided a capuchin helper monkey. In this movie she is named Gigi. But names, family dynamics, locations, and method of paralysis are all fictional, as are most of the interactions portrayed. But none of that matters in appreciating the movie. It deals authentically with a real subject and the difficulties of a partially incapicated person. Including military veterans, some featured in the movie, who were wounded, many with missing limbs. Also the last parts of the movie, depicting the protests and the hearings to see if legislation will be advanced to prohibit use of monkeys as service animals. Today the organization, Helping Hands, no longer trains capuchin monkeys mainly due to pressure from animal rights groups, as well as concerns over health and safety. These factors resulted in federal and state governments changing the laws to make it difficult or impossible to have a monkey as a service animal. In 2010, a revision to the Americans with Disabilities Act stripped capuchin monkeys of their status as service animals. My wife and I enjoyed this movie at home on BluRay from our public library.