In 1958 New York Diane Arbus is a housewife and mother who works as an assistant to her husband, a photographer employed by her wealthy parents. Respectable though her life is, she cannot help but feel uncomfortable in her privileged world. One night, a new neighbor catches Diane's eye, and the enigmatic man inspires her to set forth on the path to discovering her own artistry.
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Reviews
Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Awesome Movie
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
This movie, by no means is an easy popcorn watch. Downey has given the most restrained yet powerful performance in this movie. There is hardly any dialog. Downey has given his usual trademarks a miss. The eyes behind the fur reach out to you searching your soul trying to make a connection. The chemistry between Downey & Nicole is electrifying. Every scene they are together, they bring out the quiet despair and love that speaks volumes about their internal desires and strong feelings for one another. There is ample use of symbolism and metaphors. The music & the set add to the experience. I feel 'Fur' is sort of reminiscent of 'The Beauty & The Beast' story. It is sure to leave a lump in your throat and manages to make the sensitive connect.
Who was this film made for? That is the question I am begging to have answered .Diane was an uncompromising artist who stared unrelentingly and without sentimentality at our world and its inhabitants. Not exactly the stuff popular documentaries are made of. So we get this: a series of corporate decisions that get renamed as "an imaginary portrait". There is no authentic artist re-imagining here. Diane's vision gets romanticized which is entirely against the grain of who she was.This project was just an excuse to allow Robert Downey Jr. to prance around and then allow a set of NPR listeners to conclude: Gee, I guess those people I see on Maury Povich are alright.
I've seen some dumb movies over the last 20 years (Saw Splice this month) but this is really something. This movie's big idea is that the answer to the open ended question about why Diane Arbus transformed from housewife to "photographer of the uncanny," is a Harelquin romantic fiction about an inspiring freak who secretly lives upstairs, who used to be the Dog boy. See, isn't that simple? It's why she shoots freaks? Gee, connecting the dots has never been easier. Gosh, that was a satisfying answer. You need to be developmentally less than 15 years old to be pleased with that airhead concept.They managed to get the usual two-dimensional artist biopic (they've been making for about six decades now) Kilmt, Goya's Ghosts, Lust for Life, down to just one dimension. I could not believe the insipid, shallow places this movie went, and the shallow answers it provided for the Arbus enigma. Absurd crap. One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Who greenlit this? And why do they have control over that much money?
This film works better than I expected. I was a little nervous of what an imagined film actually meant (ie nonsense, or total nonsense) and whether it was going to be worth watching because of that. When a movie deals with a real person, I think it is reasonable to see where the lines between truth and fiction are going to be drawn. Obviously any film will take some liberties for the sake of a smooth plot narrative. This film is smooth and pretty well polished, and I was less distracted by what was truth and fiction than I expected. The film appears quite conventional in some aspects, ie 'freaks' are real people too, they are nice and kind, and we shouldn't prejudge them. The love affair between Arbus and Lionel I wasn't entirely convinced by . To me it was reminiscent of that horrible beauty and the beast TV series in the 80's or 90's. Again I would like to have known more of what was truth and what was fiction. You will not learn anything about Arbus's work here, which is a severe disappointment. The cinematography is excellent though, reminiscent of Hitchcock, Barton Fink, especially in the corridor shooting. The colours are rather like Mad men; the TV series set in the 50's/ 60's in an ad agency. Nicole Kidman is reasonable in the role, there are moments, especially acting besides her husband in the film, which ring true in there awkwardness. Downey is mostly hidden behind the hair caused by his illness, so its hard to judge how good his role is. I found the film watchable enough, but those awkward questions of what is real and what is fiction are not answered. It matters less to me having watched the film, but means that my praise for the film is more lukewarm than maybe it should be.