Fur Review(s) Options

[Grace Margaret M...]

Yet whenever you get too irritated at "Fur's" pretensions, the remarkable acting of its two stars pulls you back in and keeps you watching.

Kidman, the most consistently daring of today's top stars, is exceptionally convincing as someone whose interior process plays out in front of us. And Downey, for the most part using only his soulful, yearning eyes and a silky, urbane voice, creates a man no one could resist. Separately and together, they make us believe the unbelievable.

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-f...e-more-channels

i soo want to see this movie

btw here is a very small but nice review:

Our critics recommend...

Movies Opening This Week

These movies open Friday unless noted.

Casino Royale Daniel Craig debuts as the new, and blond, Bond. This outing looks back at Bond's rise in the ranks of the British secret service and his first assignment as a 007 agent.

Fast Food Nation Director Richard Linklater's fictionalized adaptation of Eric Schlosser's best-selling critique of the fast-food industry ties its subject to the post-war American lifestyle.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus This film, more fantasia than biopic about one of the 20th-century's most renowned photographers, stars Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr.

Happy Feet Penguins! Tap dancing! Need we say more? This animated feature is set in Antarctica, where penguins find their mates through song - except for one young fellow who can't sing and tries to express himself through his feet.

Let's Go to Prison A con takes revenge on the judge who sentenced him by getting the judge's son incarcerated in the same cell as him. Dax Shepard and Will Arnett star.

Shut Up & Sing Documentarian Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, U.S.A.) goes behind the scenes with the Dixie Chicks, and looks at how an offhand remark criticizing President Bush impacted their career.

Excellent (****)
...

www.philly.com

This post has been edited by Grace Margaret Mulligan: Nov 12 2006, 11:50 PM

[Wiggleurnose]

Thanks for the Fur reviews ...but for the first time I'm sort of avoiding reading too many. It's certainly a film that looks like it's going to divide many people and I get the feeling I'm going to enjoy it regardless of what critics think. I like wierd films and would probably watch it even if Nicole was not playing Diane Arbus.

[elegant_fan]

Thanks for the Fur reviews  ...but for the first time I'm sort of avoiding reading too many. It's certainly a film that looks like it's going to divide many people and I get the feeling I'm going to enjoy it regardless of what critics think. I like wierd films and would probably watch it  even if Nicole was not playing Diane Arbus.

I agree wiggleurnose ! haha... i tend to like what the critics dont.... more of the independent films . if you know what i mean...

[Grace Margaret M...]

here is one of the est I've read so far (complete with oscar talk ):

Kidman rushes in where most stars fear to tread
November 17, 2006

No group of leading ladies has ever been more open to risky and unusual projects than the current crop of perennial Oscar contenders.

This exceedingly impressive lineup includes Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Rachel Weisz, Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman -- who could all rely on their great beauty and consistent craftsmanship in their careers but none of whom do.

As Exhibit A, consider "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," a movie that draws an exceedingly thin line between invention and pretension, which then gets walked so skillfully and passionately by Kidman that it comes out on the right side. "Fur," as its subtitle suggests, is less a work of biography than fact-inspired fantasy. If the movie is highly unlikely to connect with all who see it, it will connect on a deep level to some who do, in no small part because of Kidman's committed, even daring performance.

Though Diane (pronounced Dee-ann) Arbus was one of the 20th Century's greatest and most original photographers, she is hardly a household name. Many people recognize her influential portraits of social outsiders. Their unadorned titles -- "Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park" or "Identical Twins" -- are at defiant odds with the disturbing, haunting quality of the images. What is known of Arbus' troubled, emotionally complicated personal life is mostly derived from Patricia Bosworth's biography, which is credited with inspiring "Fur."

But director Steven Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson , who collaborated on the equally odd but engaging S&M romance "Secretary," have actually taken from Bosworth's book the underpinnings of what a titles card accurately describes as "a film that invents characters and situations that reach beyond reality to express what might have been Arbus' inner experience on her extraordinary path."

The film opens with a scene of a seemingly contented and secure Arbus riding a bus, one that deposits her near a nudist camp where she will take photographs of some ordinary-looking naked people.

It then takes us back to months before, where she is shown falling apart under the pressure of being a good wife and helpmate to her photographer husband Allan (Ty Burrell), a good mother to their two daughters and a dutiful daughter to her wealthy, critical parents (Harris Yulin and Jane Alexander). Though they are attempting to throw some business to Alan by mounting a show of their new fall furs at Diane's apartment, with Diane modeling, the attention only makes Diane feel more inadequate and "apart."

So while any other women might be seriously concerned when a masked recluse moves into the apartment over hers and her plumbing becomes clogged with what seem to be the world's largest hairballs, Diane is so intrigued she schemes to photograph the new tenant. As it happens, her wildest projections aren't wild enough. Lionel (Robert Downey Jr.) is a wig maker, but that doesn't begin to explain the hair. He turns out to be covered from head to toe in the stuff, the victim of a rare disease, resembling nothing more than the fairy-tale beast of "Beauty and the Beast."

It's an audacious place for a movie to go, but Shainberg and Wilson take it into an alternative Manhattan populated by people of whom her parents -- and even a caring husband -- would never approve. The film offers Diane's discovery of the world as the catalyst of her artistic vision, and if you can buy that, you will fall into the dream-like spell that "Fur" creates. The unique relationship between Diane and her subjects is represented by her relationship with the gentle, honest Lionel.

"Fur" is hardly without its split ends, most notably in the light glossing over it gives to the sexual nature of this story. It is far less bold in its exploration of perversity than "Secretary," perhaps because it is portraying an actual person, even if she has been placed in a dream world. The droll humor that was effective in "Secretary" doesn't always work in this context. It's like dropping a crass burlesque joke into a psychological interpretation of a Grimm fairy tale.

Yet when "Fur" focuses on the empathy between Arbus and Lionel and Kidman is convincingly conveying the personal and artistic courage that grows from her relationship with him and his world, the film floats through doors few films and few actors would even knock upon.

www.freep.com

[The_sparkling_di...]

Thanks for the fur reviews.

[RedSatinDoll]

here is one of the est I've read so far (complete with oscar talk ):

www.freep.com

Excellent, well-written and objective review, Grace, thank you for posting it.

[BabyNick]

Thanx Grace 4 da latest review

~Viviana~

[red@gold]

Thanks for the Fur reviews  ...but for the first time I'm sort of avoiding reading too many. It's certainly a film that looks like it's going to divide many people and I get the feeling I'm going to enjoy it regardless of what critics think. I like wierd films and would probably watch it  even if Nicole was not playing Diane Arbus.

Exactly! I am tired of the same old same old - where I can figure out the movie plot by the title alone. I can hardly wait to see this one - even if I have to wait until it hits the video store; I fear it may not be shown near me but my fingers are crossed.

P.S. Saw Stranger than Fiction over the weekend; GREAT movie. Highly recommend it.

[NicoleFan17]

Here are a couple more that were posted just today or yesterday:


Chicago Tribune's review:

Movie review: 'Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus'

By Jessica Reaves
Tribune staff reporter


Nicole Kidman is at her best in roles that require a certain quiet, desperate intensity. Witness her turns as a ghostly mother in "The Others," as tortured writer Virginia Woolf in "The Hours," and now in "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus." Her restrained but raw delivery and expressive, searching eyes lend a weight to parts that might, in the hands of lesser actors, come across as brooding, or worse, boring.

In director Steven Shainberg's part-factual, part-fictional take on Arbus, the legendary and controversial photographer and pioneer of outsider art, Kidman again sinks her teeth into the life of a complex, deeply conflicted woman who is struggling to come to terms with her unusual view of the world, hemmed in by 1950s propriety and responsibility. The result is a revelatory, challenging and deeply affecting portrait, anchored by what may be Kidman's most profoundly moving performance to date.

Arbus was born into a world of privilege and its attendant expectations: She was supposed to marry, have children and help run her husband's business, which just happened to be a successful commercial photography studio. She did all of this, succeeding for the most part to tamp down a growing sense of disquiet, a need to expand her world beyond the walls of her safe, predictable New York City apartment.

When she sees a strange new neighbor moving into her building, his face covered in a mask, her curiosity is piqued, and she sets about discovering what she can about the mysterious man, whose presence creates unexplained occurrences, like clogged pipes and men traipsing up the stairs, bald heads bowed, and descending with their domes covered in brand new hair.

Arbus' eventual interaction with masked neighbor Lionel (Robert Downey Jr. in yet another superlative performance) is played out in scenes that would not be out of place in a thriller, suspense and surprise building to an unexpected resolution. To reveal much more about Arbus' and Lionel's relationship and its effect on her carefully choreographed life would be to spoil much of the pleasure to be found in its delicate unfurling.

Despite the movie's dependence on darkness and muted light to achieve a generally bleak tone, cinematographer Bill Pope makes wonderful use of color, juxtaposing Arbus' gray and brown apartment with the bold splashes of red, green and blue in Lionel's attic retreat. Kidman's wardrobe evolves alongside her character, moving from unassuming creams and grays into a bolder, more energetic palette.

Director Shainberg ("Secretary") guides his dreamlike film with a sure but trusting hand, smartly giving most of his gifted cast ample space to explore the complexities of their roles. The exceptions are Harris Yulin and Jane Alexander, fine actors forced into caricatures as Diane's overbearing, class-obsessed parents. The movie's other weakness is its periodic dependence on shock value, the perceived "freakishness" of peripheral but key characters -- a choice that undercuts the film's message that art, like beauty, can be found everywhere we look.

Downey and Kidman share a chemistry; they also share what may be the year's most erotic love scene. Downey, who is required here to act primarily with his eyes, succeeds in seducing not only Kidman's character but also his audience.

The supporting cast is also strong, most notably Ty Burrell as Arbus' physically diffident husband, Allan, whose desperation becomes more and more apparent as his wife's new life and new creativity takes precedence over his demands and those of their two young children. He's too late; Arbus has already made the leap from bourgeois safety into something far less comfortable and infinitely more rewarding. It's an apt allegory for the film.

***/****

----

'Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus'

Directed by Steven Shainberg; screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, loosely based on the book "Diane Arbus: A Biography" by Patricia Bosworth; photographed by Bill Pope; edited by Kristina Boden and Keiko Deguchi; music by Carter Burwell; production design by Amy Danger; produced by Laura Bickford, Patricia Bosworth, Andrew Fierberg, William Pohlad and Bonnie Timmermann A Picturehouse release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:52.

Diane Arbus -- Nicole Kidman

Lionel -- Robert Downey Jr.

Allan Arbus -- Ty Burrell

David -- Harris Yulin

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

'Fur' intrigues, but the mix of fact and fiction is disconcerting

By WILLIAM ARNOLD
P-I MOVIE CRITIC

Given how lightly most movie biographies regard the facts of their subject's lives, you have to admire the honesty of "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," a biopic of the photographer that tells us right in the title that it's full of beans.

On the other hand, you also have to be a little leery of a movie that demands the privileges of fiction while dealing with a real and relatively recent cultural figure. If the story is imaginary, how do they get off calling the character Diane Arbus?

However you may stand on this more or less moral issue, the movie itself is certainly imaginative and intriguing, and -- even if she looks nothing like her -- Nicole Kidman gives a wonderfully fragile performance as the title character.

The movie picks up Arbus' story in 1958, when she's married to commercial photographer Allan Arbus (Ty Burrell), with two small daughters and their own New York studio, which has been financed by Diane's wealthy parents (Harris Yulin and Jane Alexander).

Her husband is supportive of anything she wants to do, but Diane remains a meek, inhibited and unfulfilled '50s housewife until one day a mysterious, masked character moves into an upstairs apartment of their building and she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him.

This fellow (Robert Downey Jr.) turns out to be a former circus freak with an affliction that makes thick hair grow over every inch of his body, and her repeated trips to his surreal abode are portrayed in the film as an extended "Alice in Wonderland" allusion.

In time, the relationship becomes physical and the allusion segues into a "Beauty and the Beast" or "Phantom of the Opera" romantic parable that opens Diane to the world of deformity and alternate sexuality that will become her métier as a photographer.

The director is Steven Shainberg and, like his last film, "Secretary" -- which dealt in a sympathetic way with a sadomasochistic, master-slave relationship -- the movie sees a constructive, enlightening quality in a bond that society might find deviant and kinky.

Is any of this story true? It's hard to tell. The credits say the movie was "inspired" by a 1984 biography by Patricia Bosworth (who's also one of the film's co-producers) and the outline of her character and family relationships seem to be true to Arbus' life.

But Shainberg (whose uncle was a friend of Arbus in this period) says his movie is "a tribute to Diane: a film that invents characters and situations that reach beyond reality to express what might have been Arbus' inner experience on her extraordinary path."

I'm still a little confused as to exactly what this means, but the movie has a certain fairy-tale charm, its evocation of the '50s rings true in every scene and Kidman brings her character to life with a fey, moth-to-the-flame enthrallment that's both touching and fascinating.

This post has been edited by NicoleFan17: Nov 18 2006, 08:55 AM

[kiki]

i saw this today. very few theaters are showing it so i had to go to a smaller theater (which i actually prefer since the setting's more intimate and i can focus on the film instead of someone coughing constantly ... which i experienced whilst watching marie antoinette). anyway, sorry for the rant, this movie is great. right from the beginning, you can tell nicole's definitely stepped into somebody else's shoes. i didn't for a second feel it was her, the movie star or the actress. it's actually not that weird. it's just that, i think, that the imaginary aspect isn't as dark as expected. it was surprisingly a bit light and has some slight "comedic" instances. nicole and robert's chemistry is palpable and the sexuality's not really very graphic (lots of nudity though). go see it if you have the chance. the last shot of her actually sticks with you. she's a different person and the change is gradual but also very subtle.

p.s.
and this is why i don't trust the critics. i feel that sometimes one can buy a good review or that each of these critics highly influence the other, a sort of popular opinion then emerges. all the same.

This post has been edited by kiki: Nov 18 2006, 11:39 AM

[Meisha]

Thanks for sharing, Kiki. I look forward to watching this movie over the weekend.

[RedSatinDoll]

Thank you for the review kik! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

And thank you Nicolefan for the review transcripts. I really respect Jennifer Reeves' (Chicago Tribune) decision not to give away much or the plot - unlike most reviewers who seem determined to rob the viewer of every possible surprise.

Why the reviewer for the Seattle paper is still confused puzzles me. Haven't we hashed and rehashed this for months? "An imaginary biography" that seems simple enough. Most bioflics in fact are full of imagined incidents etc (Kackie recently pointed out to me that Johnny Cash's father was nothing like the character portrayed in "Walk the Line", for instance); the difference is that this film is being honest about its inventions - and intentions.

[kiki]

^ i can't wait for you or skanky or other members to see it as you may have a more comprehensive insight on the film. i must say (and i don't like myself for forgetting) that this is one of the bravest performances and roles an actor has done. i cannot imagine, as much as i trust kate winslet or cate blanchett, anybody else doing justice to this. probably naomi watts. nicole is perfect for shainberg's imaginary portrait... i think one has to get past the imaginary part and look at her as a woman who's just awakening from her dormancy.

[Samantha Stevens]

and this is why i don't trust the critics. i feel that sometimes one can buy a good review or that each of these critics highly influence the other, a sort of popular opinion then emerges. all the same.

I too sometimes get the same impression.
ciao

p.s. I'm not getting e-mail notification of replies any more, am I the only one?

This post has been edited by Samantha Stevens: Nov 18 2006, 11:49 PM

[skankyoldwhore]

Thanks for your review, kiki . Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a release date for UK. We will most likely get it next year! I was all ready to go see it on Friday and started noticing that no publication is writing about it, checked the screening times and nada. I can't believe it .

This post has been edited by skankyoldwhore: Nov 18 2006, 11:37 PM

[Wiggleurnose]

I think it may be opening in Jan / Feb 2007 in the UK...but can't remember where I saw this information.

[Grace Margaret M...]

a little bit of oscar buzz :

The Sunday Times  November 19, 2006

Heroine chic
The Oscar race will showcase a golden generation of actresses — in films that do their talents justice. What a refreshing change, says Christopher Goodwin
Every year at this time, a familiar lament can usually be heard in Hollywood: why are there so few good parts for women, especially for older actresses? This year, though, as the trade press begins to fill with ads touting the Oscar contenders, it’s becoming clear that an amazing number of actresses — many of them British, and many beyond the age when Hollywood normally puts them out to grass — will be in the running in January. The 2007 shortlist will highlight the richest array of female talent in more than a generation.

The roles are also incredibly varied: Helen Mirren as a dowdy but surprisingly sympathetic monarch in The Queen; Meryl Streep as the nightmarish editor in The Devil Wears Prada; *you know who* Cruz as a mother with a terrible family secret in Volver; Kate Winslet as an adulterous housewife in Little Children; Julie Christie as an Alzheimer’s sufferer in Away from Her; Sienna Miller as the drugged-out Warhol icon Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl; Beyoncé Knowles as a diva-esque 1960s soul singer in Dreamgirls; Nicole Kidman as the controversial photographer Diane Arbus in Fur; Renée Zellweger as Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter; Naomi Watts as a doctor’s wife coping with marriage and the tropics in The Painted Veil; Annette Bening as a mentally unstable mother in Running with Scissors; Ashley Judd as a thirtysomething single woman in Come Early Morning; Charlotte Rampling as a sex tourist in Heading South; Judi Dench as a nosy teacher in Notes on a Scandal; Cate Blanchett, in the same film, as a teacher having an affair with one of her students, and in The Good German as a woman attempting to escape her past; Brittany Murphy trying to control the downward spiral of her life in The Dead Girl; even Abigail Breslin, the delightful young star of Little Miss Sunshine, as Olive, who is so keen to appear in a beauty contest.

There are so many great leading parts for women this year that some of these actresses may end up competing in the best supporting category, where they could find Emma Thompson as a suicidal author in Stranger than Fiction; Frances de la Tour in The History Boys; Vera Farmiga as a mobster’s girlfriend in The Departed; Jennifer Hudson as a soul singer in Dreamgirls; Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee in Infamous; and Sharon Stone as a beautician in Bobby, about the day Robert F Kennedy was murdered. (Stone is in the unlikely position of also being the frontrunner for worst actress at the Razzie awards, for Basic Instinct 2.) Yet the vast majority of these films are made by independent companies. The perennial criticism of the major Hollywood studios — for not creating good parts for women, and for not making films that women (and I don’t mean teenage girls) want to see — is still valid. This year, for example, women were not the protagonists of any of the films nominated for best picture. Reese Witherspoon won best actress Oscar for playing June Carter Cash, the endlessly supportive wife of Walk the Line’s real subject, Johnny Cash. And the only actress over 50 to win an Oscar in either acting category in the past two decades is Judi Dench, best supporting actress for Shakespeare in Love in 1999.

“It’s Hollywood’s fault,� says Pedro Almodovar, the Spanish director of Volver, who knows a thing or two about creating great roles for women. “In other countries, we encourage diversity and want to tell stories about all kinds of women. In the past decade, you can count the number of Hollywood dramas that have revolved around women. The studios have forgotten that women are fascinating, more than just mannequins.�

There was a time — really, up until the mid-1950s and the advent of television — when many of Hollywood’s biggest money-spinners were “women’s pictures�. Many of the top stars of those years were women: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn among them. Even a few years ago, the studios were still in the business of making films for women: the Meg Ryan comedies of the late 1980s and early 1990s; more recently, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Runaway Bride and Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts; and Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama, starring Witherspoon. But in the past three or four years, even the romantic comedies that used to be made starring women, and with the female audience in mind, are now being made for men: witness Wedding Crashers and Meet the Fockers, where the women are little more than sexed-up ciphers.

“The major studios are going after what they call the ‘four quadrants’,� says Laura Bickford, the producer who made Traffic as a studio film and Fur with independent financing and distribution. “And they have made a business decision that for their $150m movies, they have to have the teenage male ‘quadrant’.� This model breaks the audience into four parts: men under 25, men over 25, women under 25 and women over 25. Because budgets are now so high, the studios calculate they need to hit as many of the quadrants as they can — all four, they hope. But their research shows that whereas women will go to see “guy� movies, men won’t be seen dead in the queue for a “chick flick� — hence the focus on teenage boys.

But there is a silver lining. Bickford believes that, lamentable as the studios’ neglect of the female audience is, it may be the main reason we are now seeing so many terrific films starring women. “As the studios have become more intensely focused on male-oriented blockbusters, it has opened up a huge area for the independents to exploit. Clearly, the studios have underestimated the potential buying power of the adult — non-teenage — female audience. These movies are showing that. Anybody who doesn’t like watching Bening or Streep or Mirren is blind. And the thing about the baby-boom female audience is that if the price is right, it is very lucrative.� The Devil Wears Prada, for instance, which was targeted strongly at older women, has taken $125m at the US box office, much the same as Mission: Impossible III, which cost five times as much to make. You do the maths.

It’s also becoming clear that the recent success on television of female-driven dramas and comedies such as Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City and Grey’s Anatomy has been a huge factor in spurring at least the independent companies in Hollywood to make films for the (mainly older) women who are watching them. “Television is showing that the audience is there for dramas that depict more complicated women — and by complicated, I mean anyone over 25,� Bickford says. “Blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean have a lot of parts for men, older men, as character actors,� she points out. “Where are the great women’s roles in those movies? But these actresses have to work, so they are almost forced to seek out more interesting and edgy roles, as this year’s films show.�

Daniel Battsek, the Brit who now runs Miramax, agrees. “There is this group of wonderful actresses — Mirren, Streep, Redgrave, Bening and Christie, to name just a few — who don’t stop being great just because they’ve reached a certain age. In fact, their performances are even richer because of their age and experience. This amazing pool really demands that movies be found that are appropriate to their talents.�

Mirren, who is 61 and the frontrunner for the best actress Oscar, is philosophical. “There are fewer roles,� she acknowledges, “but the roles get better as you get older. They become deeper, more complicated and more interesting. It’s those young roles that are tedious.�

www.timesonline.co.uk

[skankyoldwhore]

FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS
Rated:R

For movie details, please click here.

She was not the first artist fascinated by the bizarre. Hieronymus Bosch and Peter Bruegel created grotesque fantasy paintings in the 15th and 16th centuries. Leonardo da Vinci went out of his way to find ugly physical specimens in the marketplace of Florence, paying the freaks of his day to model for him as if to drive home the point that extreme asymmetry was as aesthetically important as perfect symmetry. The value of the bizarre as a legitimate subject for photography was Diane Arbus' signature. Indeed, before the end of Fur we begin to question our notions of what is bizarre and what is not, as the film forces its audience to travel a visual and emotional journey very close to the one that Arbus herself must have experienced.

Not a conventional biography, Fur takes us from the time in 1958 when Arbus (Nicole Kidman) did her best to live the conventional life of a dutiful wife and daughter to the point when she struck out on her own singular artistic mission. Director Steven Shainberg (Secretary) skillfully recreates the painful social and emotional restrictions endured by women of the period. Arbus was anything but a rebel, her husband Allan (Ty Burrell) was anything but a tyrant, but her life under the overbearing interference of her wealthy mother (Jane Alexander) and father (Harris Yulin), as well as the constant demands of her two daughters (Emmy Clarke and Genevieve McCarthy), gave her no time for self-expression. She was simply a cog in the wheel of marital harmony, and the moment when she has to answer the question, "What do you do?" is as painful as it is telling.

Into her ever-frustrating existence comes a stranger, Lionel (Robert Downey, Jr.), a mysterious man wearing a mask over his head, who moves into the highest apartment in her building. The two seem drawn to each other immediately. His mystery not only intrigues Diane, but fascinates her. The more she learns about Lionel, an apparent circus freak with exquisite manners whose body is covered by hair from head to foot, the more she falls under his spell. Lionel takes her on expeditions to his own circle of friends, all of whom offer lifestyles foreign to her expectations. Yet they are warm, loving, open individuals. It is a milieu she cannot resist, one that always surprises, and it is only a matter of time before she acknowledges to herself that she is more at home in the world of the grotesque than she is in the society to which she was born. Her explorations are punctuated with powerfully erotic scenes that expose the sexual starvation beneath her tranquil facade.

Although subtitled "An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," much of the film adheres closely to basic facts of Arbus' life: her wealthy parents, her tolerant husband, and the city, New York, which offered her an infinite number of people to explore. Biographer/co-producer Patricia Bosworth has helped ensure that every element of this film is true to Arbus' spirit, if not her actual experience. From its opening comic scene in which Diane visits a nudist colony, Fur is permeated with a constant tension that evokes the mystery of Arbus' awakening vision of humanity. Kidman's performance is her best to date, filled with a kind of reluctant heroism that is as unexpected as it is courageous. Downey gives a remarkably restrained performance, totally unlike any other in his often manic career.

It is a testament to Arbus' vision and influence that much of what was shocking in 1958 has become accessible as well as acceptable in 2006. Amy Danger's production design and Shainberg's powerful evocation of Arbus' life and sensibility give us compelling portraits of the world she changed forever.


Critic: Bruce Feld
http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/rev...t_id=1003379982

[consuelo]

Kidman's performance is her best to date, filled with a kind of reluctant heroism that is as unexpected as it is courageous. Downey gives a remarkably restrained performance, totally unlike any other in his often manic career.

What an awesome review. Thanks Skanky for the link.

This post has been edited by consuelo: Dec 2 2006, 11:15 AM

[Grace Margaret M...]

thnx
what an extraordinary review. it is certainly one of the most favourable i have red so far. i totally agree with the author on the "What do you do?" scene that really makes you feel uncomfortable because it is so realistic. it is certainly one of the most, perhaps even the most important scenes of the whole movie.