A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough Review: Gorgeous Nature Documentary Lives and Dies on Vibes

I will fully admit that I would not have watched A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough if I wasn’t literally being paid to do so and write about it. To be honest, nature documentaries have never really been my thing. I don’t have anything against them. I just tend to prefer my wild animal footage to be in shorter bursts and without narration prescribing a narrative onto these animals where none may actually exist.

But on the other hand, Attenborough is a genuine master within this particular space to the point of being the presumed default. So, if anyone was going to sway me on this subgenre, it would be him. What he and Netflix ultimately created is a film that, while not exactly changing my mind about nature documentaries as a whole, is largely effective at what it does.

What is A Gorilla Story about?

The film focuses on a group of silverback gorillas living in the Rwandan mountains. Specifically, these gorillas are the direct descendants of Pablo, a baby gorilla David Attenborough had a surprisingly meaningful relationship with after encountering him on a documentary shoot in the 1970s. Known as the Pablo Group, these gorillas eat, sleep, form relationships, and create communities in a vast and lush kingdom free from humanity’s influence.

A Gorilla Story Review

It’s extremely difficult to judge A Gorilla Story as a narrative, since just by nature of its genre and subject matter, to what degree the film genuinely has a story and characters is not fully possible to tell. David Attenborough himself admits at one point that we cannot know a gorilla’s actual thoughts, so much of the plot and character that we are told is happening is subject to Attenborough’s interpretation and how much we’re able to buy it.

For example, much of the story focuses on the changing leadership dynamics within the Pablo Group, which is a fairly well-documented subject within animal behavioral studies. Gorillas in particular are known to form hierarchies similar to humans, and said hierarchies are subject to change if and when more qualified leadership comes along. However, the manner in which it is depicted here feels a bit overly humanized for the sake of having a narrative.

Much of Attenborough’s narration attempts to characterize the leadership changes and the interactions between the Pablo Group and other groups as an almost Game of Thrones-style drama. Opposing factions, betrayals, and even love triangles aren’t off the table here.

Now, far be it from me to question the knowledge of an expert like Attenborough, but I just don’t buy that gorillas in the wild, without our very human hang-ups regarding economic and social classes, would take this sort of struggle that seriously. Most of this feels more like standard operating procedure that would come and go without a second thought to them, very much not some epic struggle for control over a sacred line or something else of that nature.

Also not helping matters is that while the film very much wants the individual gorillas to feel like characters in a story, almost all of that character has to be prescribed to us by the narration because these are real animals who cannot speak for themselves or even be meaningfully anthropomorphized. This problem is best illustrated by the fact that all the gorillas have unique names, but the adult ones look so similar to one another that the film has to constantly put their name placards back on screen to ensure the audience can keep track of who’s who.

All of this is to say that David Attenborough’s otherwise charming and soothing narration, arguably the biggest selling point of the film, ironically ends up being its biggest weakness. Visually, the film is absolutely breathtaking. Granted, the Rwandan mountains are so naturally beautiful that you’d have to actively try to make them look bad, but still. And seeing such majestic creatures as silverback gorillas simply existing without human interference is a very rare and very astounding sight.

When A Gorilla Story simply allows its subject matter to be without forcefully prescribing character or stakes onto them, it’s great. Seeing these creatures able to roam free in their natural habitat is often deeply moving and when emotional moments happen organically, they hit hard. And it’s not as though Attenborough himself is entirely detrimental to the piece. In the rare moments where he interacts with the gorillas directly, he meets them at their level, and it is absolutely beautiful.

I also fully understand that narration is, on some level, a necessity in something like this. At a certain point, the audience is going to need a guiding hand to understand the context of what’s happening, and almost no one in this field does that job better than David Attenborough. But I don’t need the man to constantly tell me about how the gorilla leader and the young insurgent gorilla are totally doing the Caesar vs. Koba bit from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Even if they are, I don’t care. I just want to watch the gorillas in peace, Mr. Attenborough.

Is A Gorilla Story worth watching?

If nature documentaries are your bag, then A Gorilla Story more than does the job. It’s beautifully shot, atmospheric, and at less than 90 minutes, never overstays its welcome. But if you’re like me, it won’t do anything to change your mind about the genre as a whole. It works for what it is, and I enjoyed my time with it well enough, but it can’t help but feel limited by its format as far as I’m concerned.

A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough is now streaming on Netflix.