Review of Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) by Vaughn — 27 Sep 2008
Based on the real life of Diane Arbus, an artist and photographer back in the 60s that nurtured a fascination of freaks, transvestites, dwarfs, giants, prostitutes and ordinary working class citizens, in unconventional poses and settings. She went from being a frustrated and lonely woman in a conventional marriage, to becoming an artist that dared to cross boundaries.
The movie adaptation has a made up love story between Diane (Nicole Kidman) and the next door neighbour, Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey Jr), a mysterious man with hypertrichosis (a.k.a. werewolf syndrome, a disease that causes excessive body hair). Thus, showing how Diane got her fascination for marginalized people in the american society.
"Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" is a nice piece of film in terms of being a cinematic story. But, at the same time it is a very sugar coated story that floats around in some fairytale universe and leaves out the interesting and tragic bits of the real Diane Arbus. Nicole Kidman fits as Diane, but at the same time I feel that she has kind of ended up in the dreaded repeatative acting scenario, despite different characters. Downey Jr is solid though. This was, well not bad, but I would have wanted a bigger touch of reality and a deeper portrait of Diane Arbus.
This review of Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) was written by Vaughn on 27 Sep 2008.
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus has generally received mixed reviews.
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