Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

As indicated by its subtitle and some unnecessary title cards at the start of the film, director Steven Shainberg’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus is not a biopic of the iconic photographer or any sort of factual representation of her life and work. What Shainberg is interested in is crafting an emotionally truthful account of Arbus’ transformation from repressed housewife to visionary artist. He envisions her as a woman trapped behind the facade of a doting wife and mother. She wears conservative clothing and behaves politely save for a few outbursts and some “unsavory” behavior she’s made efforts to leave behind her. The arrival of a fur covered former circus performer named Lionel changes all this. He introduces her to his other circus friends and reawakens in her a passion for the strange and the damaged. He reminds her of a time when she believed that to be odd was to be brave and dares her to be brave once again. Soon enough, she’s skipping out on her family to spend time with Lionel and his unconventional friends. She chooses them as her first project in her new hobby of photography and so emerges the Arbus the world knows now.

Shainberg’s work as a director is audacious and beautiful. His film’s creep up on you, distracting you with elements of avant-garde and then layering beneath the eye catching sexual eccentricity a sense of authentic pain and longing. He bravely captures the delicate connections between freaks and outsiders much with the same loving eye as Arbus. He does not judge or pity these people for craving things seen as culturally unacceptable. He appreciates their candor and their openness and photographs them in as flattering a light as possible. His camera clearly favors the passionate and vulnerable love between Diane and Lionel over the neatly packaged social arrangement of Diane and her husband, Allan. Though Allan is quite kind, he can never really understand his wife or duplicate the honesty and the freedom that Diane and Lionel share.

As Arbus, Nicole Kidman captures a brilliant glimmer of hidden affection as she slowly opens up to Lionel and his world. She takes a quiet journey with her eyes from secretly squirming beneath the surface to finding complete peace in a guiltless acceptance of her true identity. Kidman makes Arbus an adorable wonder of acceptance whose warm smile toward the outcasts she meets reveals an endearing innocence and wonderful passion. Even hidden behind fur, Robert Downey Jr. manages to make something special out of Lionel. The fur is only a product of makeup and prosthetics, but the wounded eyes and celebratory boldness are genuine. This is a film that is driven by these performances and dependent upon the actors to make its unusual story feel as sincere and relatable as commonplace cinema subjects. The film’s sleek style can sometimes feel overly calculated, but with such earnest acting there is truth to every frame. Fur is a mysteriously elegant and emotionally moving experience like no other film I’ve seen this year.

Grade: A+