DVD Review: Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

By Frankie Dees May 10, 2007, 13:37 GMT

From the window of her immaculate New York apartment, lonely housewife Diane Arbus (Kidman) locks eyes with a masked figure on the street, a mysterious new neighbor (Downey, Jr.) whose penetrating gaze strips the veneer off her tidy reality. Mysteriously drawn to the man that intrigues her and determined to take his photograph, Diane ventures to his apartment and embarks on a journey that will unlock her deepest secrets, awaken ...more

Nicole Kidman stars as the titular, legendary photographer in “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus” which as the name will tell you, plays out in a fantastical imagining rather than a full-fledged biopic.

Directed by Steven Shainberg and written by Erin Cressida Wilson, the same team that brought us ‘Secretary.’ With this film, they decided to attempt an intriguing if ultimately unsatisfying take on the life of Diane Arbus - based on a novel by Patricia Bosworth. Diane Arbus, for the unenlightened (myself included heretofore) was a photographer who gained a lot of acclaim in the 60s for her sharp captures of people outside the normal spectrums of society i.e. dwarves, giants…basically the cast of Todd Browning’s ‘Freaks’ – her photographs capturing the beauty of these individuals.

This film tries to detail or explain how a normal everyday upper-society housewife in Manhattan leaves the comfort of her apparently put upon position to become a renowned photographer with a penchant for the individuals who reside on the fringe of the accepted social order. There’s a good film within this subject but the peculiarity of the script and the almost arbitrary flow of the narrative, in direct contrast to the films oddness, keeps this one surprisingly stagnant for a plot that will probably sound interesting once I describe it.

A fascinating prologue finds our heroine Arbus (Kidman) at the gates of a nudist colony, camera in tow. She’s invited in for a meet and greet with a middle-aged buck-naked twosome who sits in chairs without a care in the world. The couple asks her to strip as well, seemingly a stipulation to take photographs. Her response comes at the end of the film as this request prompts the flashback that marks the majority of the film.

We cut to three months earlier where we see Diane playing good daughter and wife at a fashion show where her wealthy father (Harris Yulin) is hawking his furs (not where the film draws it’s title…wait for it…) all the while providing an able assistant to her commercial photographer husband Allan (Ty Burrell). Asked to retrieve a camera from a lonely room, she finds company through the window where she discovers a new and mysterious neighbor who hides behind one of many masks, this one might not looking out of place in ‘Nacho Libre.’

Through Diane’s curious eyes, we follow her lure into the lair of the mystifying upstairs occupant. The scene plays out almost as something out of ‘The Ring’, as she slowly creeps to the door and then dares venture inside. The masked man appears and poses a request - a request to remove the trappings of her perceived normal existence, of respectability.

We learn the identity of the masked man who goes by the name of Lionel (Robert Downey Jr.). Proceed no further in this review if you want to go in completely spoiler-free. Lionel reveals himself to be a man afflicted with the rare disease hypertrichosis which causes the entire body to be covered with hair, or rather ‘fur.’ Closely resembling Chewbacca in the flowing locks of hair that pour around his facial features, Downey is only able to communicate with his eyes and the deliberate choice of using a soothing, meditative voice to draw her in.

She becomes mesmerized by him, sees his uniqueness that applies not only to his aesthetics but to his verbiage. He also shows her into what seems a secret of society of sorts, his friends consisting of people he met in a carnival sideshow. Taking a few cues from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (the story is hinted at several times) with white rabbits, tea parties, and various imagery adorning Lionel’s exquisitely designed apartment, Diane proceeds to fall down the rabbit hole.

Diane and Lionel continue their tease of a relationship where Lionel finally makes a decision to bare himself to her both emotionally and physically as time might be running short. These final scenes come out as forced at best, unintentionally funny at worst. The performance is there but the actions are peculiarly banal and without the needed passions that the film would need to overcome a fairly ridiculous scenario.

Kidman makes brave, and decidedly poor decisions when it comes to choosing both big-budget and smaller, more personal films. From ‘The Stepford Wives’ and ‘Bewitched’ to ‘Birth’ and now ‘Fur,’ I gotta give her credit for trying but I remain disenchanted with her for the most part. Her delicate, porcelain features seem to become more fragile as she gets older and I’m always afraid that a exaggerated expression could cause her to shatter to the floor in a million pieces – which might explain her lack of expressions. She’s always been a capable actress but I could never get over a slight detachment in her performances, ‘Moulin Rouge’ being the closest film to an exception. 

Besides the glorious production design of Amy Danger and the nifty camera work of Bill Pope, the most notable reason for taking the film in is Robert Downey Jr’s performance. A fascinating creature that deserves a better film, the passion isn’t necessarily present but Downey provides Lionel a hypnotic charm with eyes and a voice that makes one understand why Diane would be more than happy to fall down this particular rabbit-hole.

Small touches convince me they were trying. Diane had two young daughters with her husband and her family has made the cowardly choice to inspect but not confront. When Allan and the oldest daughter have their suspicions, it seems something intriguing might be happening with these characters. Allan, in a humorous albeit sad attempt to become attractive to Diane again, grows a beard to no avail. Diane doesn’t even take notice of these desperate pleas and Burrell does a great job as a man humiliated, if only to himself and his daughters. There’s no resolution to this side of her life, however. The film is content to just provide a dollop of much needed layering.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Special Features include a insightful commentary by Director Shainberg where I find that he made the film he wanted to make with no apologies - a distinct vision that didn’t quite grab me this time. A similar relationship in his previous film ‘Secretary’ (the coupling of two people outside the spectrum of what most people would peg as normal) seemed more confident but Shainberg remains a filmmaker to watch out for. We also have deleted scenes with commentary.

Ultimately, I found the film lacking in a number of ways, most notably an absence of dramatic weight. Yet, there’s no denying the talent in front and behind of the camera and while I can’t quite recommend it to people outright, if you’re a fan of the methodically-paced bizarre, you might find this film a winning option for the right eccentric crowd.

Fur - An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a July 23rd release. Visit the DVD database for more information.