Chimpanzee Movie

I took Luke to see the movie Chimpanzee last night. "It's rated G," I thought. "It'll be safe to watch with him." I was wrong. Not to ruin the movie for you, but it's a little violent and scary to be rated G. In the movie description it said that the baby chimp, Oscar, gets separated from his mother, and is adopted by another adult chimpanzee. What it didn't say was that Oscar's mother would be killed in an attack from a rival group of chimpanzees. It was a bit much for Luke.

When the movie was over Luke dropped his toy chimp that he had taken with us to the movie. It fell between the seats and disappeared. I used my cell phone as a flash light and crawled on my hands and knees up and down our sticky row in an effort to find toy Oscar. Oscar was nowhere to be found and Luke was distraught.

When the theater workers came in to clean the theater we were still in there searching. They came to our aid with brooms and flashlights. Eventually, one of the workers leaned over and said, "You know what, honey? I bet another kid found Oscar and took him home." If Luke wasn't already upset, this really sent him over the edge. He began to wail. "He's wost. He's wost. He's gonna be so scared 'cause he doesn't have a mudder." They told us to check at the lost and found desk which we did. No Oscar. He pleaded as we walked out the door. "Pwease, pwease don't make me weave him here. Poor wittle guy doesn't have a mudder. I'm so sorry I dropped him."

I felt certain that he'd forget about Oscar as soon as we got in the car and headed home, but he didn't. I asked him if he got enough to eat and he responded, "I'm not speaking right now. I'm just too sad." Oh good grief. It was time to get creative.

"I bet someone found Oscar and took him back to the store where we bought him. We should go there and check." Luke thought this was a great idea, and I was hoping and praying that Michaels would still be open at 8:50pm. They were, but just barely. We briskly walked in and Luke stopped at the customer service desk. "Uh scuse me, has eberyone seen a chimpanzee in here?" He went on to explain how he lost his toy and we were there to see if someone brought it back to its home. One of the employees picked up on my scheme and escorted us to the back to find a replacement Oscar. With that, we headed home.

Now, for all of my critics out there, please note that I fully intend to let my son learn about loss, but yesterday wasn't going to be the day AND it wasn't going to be over a toy chimpanzee. The moral of the story is this, unless you want your three year old to be traumatized into feeling empathy for non-living things, don't take them to see Chimpanzee for at least a couple of years.