Gorillas in the Mist

Dian Fossey, working as an occupational therapist, changes her life after hearing the anthropologist Louis Leakey and goes to study mountain gorillas in the forests of Rwanda. Over years she gets close to them, and the bond she forms with a male she names Digit carries her from research into fighting poachers. Her methods harden and she falls out with everyone around her. The film ends with her murder on Boxing Day 1985, a killing still unsolved. Michael Apted directed. Sigourney Weaver plays Fossey and Bryan Brown plays the photographer Bob Campbell. It opened on 23 September 1988 and runs 129 minutes, distributed by Universal in the US and Canada and by Warner Bros elsewhere. On a 22 million dollar budget it took 61.1 million worldwide. Weaver won the Golden Globe for the role and Maurice Jarre won one for his score. The film gathered five Oscar nominations, including Best Actress. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 84 percent. Roger Ebert praised the casting but found the characterisation thin, writing that the film tells us what happened to her but not who she was. Who it is for: viewers who care about conservation and like portraits drawn from real lives. Who it is not for: anyone expecting Fossey's methods to be examined. The film isolates her after a point but barely argues with her choices.