Fur: Extremes Don't Always Meet

Steven Shainberg's "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," both begins and ends with disclaimers that his story is a vision of how aspects of Diane Arbus' life may have led to her creative development. All fine and good: the story begins and ends at a nudist colony (with a fleeting glimpse of a deshabille Nicole Kidman, who mirrors Arbus' waiflike naivete chiefly via a constant flow of tear-brimmed eyes). It is Shainberg's clever conceit--the fictionalized "Wolf Man," Lionel, as portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. in yet another luminous performance--who shapes her progress. It makes you wonder: without his "fur," what, indeed, led Diane Arbus to discover the world of "freaks,"...and, indeed, the "freak" within herself? Loosely based on Patricia Bosworth's biography of Arbus--she co-produced the movie. Extremes are said to meet: alas, they don't stretch far enough in this imaginative biopic--or "fictionalized biography," as it were--or, conversely, they're just a bit too heavy-handed, as is, as I stated earlier, the acting on Kidman's part. Downey gets away with it, just because...the excellent stage and screen actress, Jane Alexander, convincingly plays Arbus' overbearing mother, which could begin to explain the sensitive photographer's neuroses. There's a great deal of flitting and floating about, interspersed with stark realism: perhaps that was Arbus' world? It's Shainberg's interpretation of her world, that's for sure--I only wish I'd left the theater more fulfilled, feeling that I'd really, truly peeked through a window into her freakish--yet fascinating--world. Ninina needs 1.5 popcorn boxes.