The pair behind “Secretary” has fashioned another slinky character study of an unapologetically kinky young woman. But the famous freak aficionado played by Nicole Kidman in “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus” isn’t as likable, understandable or compelling as the fictional submissive played by Maggie Gyllenhaal in their last film.
As the title suggests, this time director Steven Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson imagine their own scenario of how the real-life mid-century photographer Diane (pronounced (Dee-ann) Arbus might have been sucked from her cushy life as a well-to-do New York City housewife into the netherworld of physically aberrant subjects who would become the centerpiece of her life’s work.
Although it is loosely based on the Patricia Bosworth biography, “Fur” never tries to be an accurate account of the then avant-garde artist, who committed suicide in 1971 at age 48. (Also, apparently, the production didn’t have the rights to show Arbus’s actual pictures in the film.)
Rather, it focuses on the year 1958, when Arbus would come to change her focus away from her family in order to follow her muse. The screenplay creates a kind of composite or collectively representative character in Lionel Sweeney — an abnormally, uncontrollably hairy “wolfman” played with a balance of sincerity, pathos and danger by Robert Downey Jr.
He steals this picture right away from Kidman, however brave her choice was to take on this aloof and selfish protagonist. Ty Burrell plays her abandoned husband Allan Arbus as a feeble victim of circumstance while Jane Alexander and Harris Yulin play her disapproving rich parents.
The narrative through line, to the extent that it has one, is Lionel’s gradual seduction of Diane into a weirdly converging psychic, artistic and erotic transformation.
Certainly, filmmakers Shainberg and Wilson have creatively combined a distinctive offbeat mood with a period look. They use Arbus and her world as symbols for the cultural awakening that was happening as ‘50s repression was giving way to ‘60s expression. But as interesting as that idea is, without a more sympathetic main character to care about, “Fur” gets tangled in the end.
‘Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus’
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr. and Ty Burrell
Director: Steven Shainberg
Rated: R for graphic nudity, some sexuality and language
