Movies should be daring, take risks, try crazy things. Because otherwise movies will get stagnant and stop growing.
Nevertheless, when a movie takes risks and tries something crazy and fails completely, it still fails. This principle fits “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus,” a silly new drama.
The film’s main character is in fact Diane Arbus, the famous 1960s photographer. Or perhaps she is “Diane,” a woman who shares biographical facts with Arbus, but is a fictional creation.
Either way, she’s played by Nicole Kidman, who gives a graver, more committed performance than the movie deserves. The film’s Diane, like the historical one, is born to a stifling family in the New York fur business, and assists her husband (Ty Burrell) with his fashion photography. But she’s not yet an artist.
But Diane’s photographic impulses are fired by a relationship with a mysterious man living in the upstairs apartment. And here the movie departs from Arbus’ life story, and indeed departs from any recognizable world we live in.
The upstairs neighbor is Lionel (Robert Downey Jr.), a man covered head to foot in thick, werewolf-like hair. We don’t see much of Downey beneath the fur, but his voice makes him sound like he’s espousing the Playboy philosophy.
Lionel invites Diane into his world, which is full of his sex-and-Zen style and sideshow freaks. Part of Arbus’ fame came with her deadpan photographs of dwarfs, giants and various non-traditional camera subjects. (None of Arbus’ photos are included.)
He’s exotic and dangerous, in marked contrast to Diane’s tightly controlled life. Diane must take over her own artistic and sexual personality, and also buy a big can of shaving cream.
And so the movie goes along, working out its speculative story in a literate but completely wrong-headed way. It all takes place in a la-la land that seems much less interesting than the real world.
Director Steven Shainberg previously made the erotic, offbeat “Secretary,” and this movie has a similarly handsome look. I can see how some viewers might be drawn into the slow, peculiar mood of “Fur,” but I found it easy to resist.
Nicole Kidman stars in “Fur.”
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