Susan Granger: “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus” (Picturehouse)
Inspired by Patricia Bosworth’s insightful biography about the famed cult artist (1923-1971) whose visions changed the face of American photography, this is a grotesque fantasy that wants to be a decadent “Alice in Wonderland.”
The opening sequence shows Diane (Nicole Kidman), pronounced “Dee-anne,” arriving at a nudist camp to shoot some pictures. A naked middle-aged couple greets her politely, requesting that she undress as well.
Flashback – as Diane, the privileged daughter of a wealthy Manhattan furriers (Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander), is working as a stylist for her commercial photographer husband Allan Arbus (Ty Burrell) with whom she has two daughters.
Into her life comes a mysterious upstairs neighbor, Lionel (Robert Downey Jr.), a former circus freak afflicted with hypertrichosis, a rare disease that covers his entire body with hair, or fur. Think Sasquatch or “Star Wars'” Chewbacca!
It’s Lionel, the quintessential outsider, who inspires shy, awkward Diane to explore the forbidden ‘dark side,’ where her enigmatic obsession lies. Soon, she’s inviting his baroque, bohemian friends – dwarves, giants and amputees – home for cocktails, much to her family’s dismay. Click, click, click goes her Rolleiflex camera.
Screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson and director Steven Shainberg miss the opportunity to delve beneath the surface to illuminate the real character of Diane. Instead, there’s this bewildering, banal metaphor – furrier’s daughter falls for fur man – becoming sexually surreal, revisionist history.
With her ability to disappear into any part, regal Nicole Kidman plays yet another brilliant, unconventional, suicidal woman, a role she did previously in “The Hours,” while Robert Downey Jr. is effective utilizing only his eyes and voice. But on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Fur” is a perverse, pretentious, tiresome 2 -with a narrow, hallucinogenic depth of field.
