Movie Review: Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Movies Reviews

By Ronald Wilkinson Nov 7, 2006, 3:10 GMT

An unusual film about an unusual person, “Fur” is the fictitious story of a love affair that very well could have happened; the affair between photographer-to-the-bizarre Diane Arbus and her first subject.

Arbus is played by Nicole Kidman, who brings the same fantastic danger and foreboding that she portrayed so well in Lars von Trier’s ‘Dogville’ to the 1958 setting of her parents upper-crust fur salon on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue. Driven from her family by her inability to conform to their ruling elite expectations, Arbus chances to meet her neighbor, Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey Jr.), a former circus freak covered head to toe with long, curly hair. Feeling the urge to photograph Lionel, she is drawn into his world and captivated by his friends---a caste who lost their right to live normal lives when they were born very different. Inspired by Patricia Bosworth’s book, “Diane Arbus: A Biography,” the film is half fact drawn from the book and half fiction melded together by Arbus’ actual love affair with one of her photography subjects, 495 pound, 8 foot tall, “Jewish Giant” Eddie Carmel. The character of Lionel Sweeney actually existed around the turn of the century as the circus freak “Lionel, the Lion-Faced Man.” He was Poland-born Stephan Bibrowsky who suffered from hypertrichosia, a genetic condition that causes six-inch-long hair to grow uncontrollably over the entire body. This character is combined with "Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy," whose face was entirely covered with hair and who barked and yelped in the Barnum and Bailey circus. Other characters in the film include the predictable midgets and transvestites. The armless woman who dusts, cleans and smokes cigarettes with her feet and toes is very real—no special effects.The screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson takes us into an E.L. Doctorow world where actual historical characters are melded with fictional characters to create an exciting and engaging fantasy of self-awareness and self-actualization. The real world of New York’s moneyed elite makes a powerful backdrop for the Weegee world four miles south in the Bowery. Arbus feels like a freak and an outcast because she can not, or will not, fit into the rigidly self-conscious world of her obsessively politically and fashionably correct parents. It will be up to the viewer to decide if this means that Diane Arbus was different from her parents, or whether her obsessive quest for excellence proves she was the same.Wilson does a smashing job of capturing the boiling conflict in Lionel between the classic circus freak and the brain behind the act. The actual Lionel and Jo-Jo were, in fact, professionally managed actors who were far more sophisticated than the public that viewed them with disgust and pity. The casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Lionel is perfect as is his serious and soft-spoken performance of the man behind the mask. Downey manages immediately to command the attention and respect of the audience while imbuing Lionel’s first meetings with Arbus with a seething undercurrent of dangerous and taboo sexuality. Not only is faithful wife and devoted mother Diane considering adultery, but she is being dominated sexually by someone that society considers half animal and half human. Is she doing it because she loves the man, or because she hates her parents? Who is really the freak, Diane or Lionel?Ty Burrell plays Allan Arbus, the loyal husband and father who watches his wife slowly and inexorably pulled away by social strata he can neither understand nor accept. He gives Diane her first Rolliflex and urges her to take some time to learn how to take pictures. He, too, is conflicted; enabling his wife to find herself but at the same time fearing she will go too far. When she does, he is crushed and it is Diane that seems to have the upper hand. The film shows the light of a new dawn breaking in Diane’s eyes as she is forced to leave both lovers behind; the bittersweet ending stopping well short of her suicide in 1971.Kidman does a good job showing Arbus’ transformation from a meek daughter, wife and mother to an artist discovering her calling, but her performance lacks the complete three dimensional conviction of her previous work.Director Shainberg may be partly to blame for this, as if he was a little intimidated by Kidman and let her do too much of her own directing. But the strong screenplay by Wilson, the extensive research and careful development of the story by Shainberg and Wilson and the perfect sets and costumes make this film a wonderful viewing experience. Opens USA November 10, 2006. MPAA: Rated R for graphic nudity, some sexuality and language.