Genre: Drama
Director: Steven Shainberg
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr., Ty Burrell, Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander, Emmy Clarke, Genevieve McCarthy
RunTime: 2 hrs
Released By: Warner Bros
Rating: M18

Opening Day: 11 January 2007

Synopsis :

Set in New York in the late 1950s, FUR conjures an image of visionary artist Diane Arbus by intertwining a fictional romance with aspects of Arbus’ life in order to explore the mysterious artistic development of a woman who is now regarded as one of the most influential photographers of all time.

Movie Review:

In facetious literary terms, Diane Arbus (that’s pronounced ‘Dee-Ann’) would be dismissed as just another poor little rich girl. On Arbus’s terms, she rose swiftly and almost suddenly to strike back at the alienation she felt. From being in danger of becoming just another a crusted New York housewife with an upper-middle class background to becoming one of avant-garde photography’s greatest legends, Diane Arbus transcends just being a pioneering female figure. Indeed, the director Steven Shainberg does not intend to merely pay tribute to her, but to every artist and to everyone who dared break the mould to pursue their desires.

Born Diane Nemerov, Diane (Nicole Kidman) was considered a gifted child. But being devoid of attention (the type she preferred anyway) in the phallocentric 40s gave rise to the feeling of rebelliousness in her. She met and married fashion photographer Allan Arbus (Ty Burrell), a tumultuous marriage if anything but one that served to provide an avenue for Diane’s bustling imagination and intelligence. It’s important to note that the “Fur” does not acquaint us with her life’s numerous ups and downs but praises her most prevailing aspect – a career as one of the most influential photographers of the century. In such, it’s not a description of her successes but one that explores her processes as she walks the line between obsession and artistry, and what triggered that explosion of insight that she innately shared through her photographs.

What “Fur” does do is try to imaginatively recreate the months in between Arbus’s life as she leaves her husband’s side to work on her notion of photography, her own personality. Although based on Arbus’s life, it’s hard to call “Fur” a biography in any sense of the word when it’s suitably a fantasy, one borne of utter whimsy that directly relates to Arbus’s own capricious nature and curiosity. “Fur” hypothesises an experience Arbus has with a kindred spirit. From this person, she’s inspired to work her magic with the marginalised of society, from whom she eventually made her name.

During a moment away from her life’s façades as wife and assistant to her husband, she becomes intrigued, drawn towards a hooded man that lives upstairs. His name is Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey Jr.) and he’s covered in hair (or fur as it is insisted upon in order to provide a connection to Arbus’s father), the hirsute body hiding the subject, the mentor that Diane desperately needs. Thus, we have a darkly comic fairy tale rife with sexual tension and a quaint sensation of discovery as we are propelled into a fantasy-fuelled expedition into Diane’s catalyst for the rest of her life.

Nicole Kidman seems a strange choice in the context of Arbus’s life but not as Diane Arbus in “Fur”. Bearing not much of a resemblance to Arbus, but probably to the models that plagued her creative bone for much of Arbus’s early career with her husband in tow. Kidman is ethereal in “Fur”, a waifish porcelain countenance that seems to float off the ground is in direct contract to Arbus’s grounded personality and experiences, one that’s seen enough to know enough. But what Kidman gets right is a keen intuitiveness and intensity, and that’s all that’s needed to replicate her subject’s progression into the legend she became.

In an invigorating and stimulating palette, the camera captures Arbus’s passion and observes lovingly. It’s reasonably tough to photograph a remarkable photographer, but the lensing is more than adequately eye-catching and fawns over her with a measure of sympathy and awe. While navigating through the lives of such incalculably talented artists like Sylvia Plath and Diane Arbus and the inextricable sadness attached to them, “Fur” is determined to uplift in spite of a tragic ending in Arbus’s life.

Movie Rating:

(A fascinating insight into a captivating personality)

Review by Justin Deimen