Admirable film.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Initially disappointed that this wasn't a film about a French lady who had a passionate and full sexual relationship with a chimpanzee. (You can't blame me and it does have Nicole Kidman in the starring role). I found I hadn't wasted me pocket money on a bottle of Cava and a packet of cheesy puffs for nothing. This film, for me, explored a facet of Diane's personality. I mean, how a 'normal' American wife with a family chose to photograph those who would have been regarded at the time as freaks. The woman's photos are beautiful and naked. And so is this film. I feel the film is not about her photos in themselves but about an aspect of her personality that found the 'freakish' to be beautiful and sexual. For me the film was honest. Real sexuality has little to do with how the media define it as being something that belongs to he world of silicone and air brushing. You don't have good sex that unites you to the eternal spirit with someone who is more worried about how their butt looks than 'la la la ing' you to ecstasy. The story deconstructs sexuality, it explores it from different angles. But hey, it isn't a sex movie, it is subtle. It is more about nudity and release. It's well worth watching. It's a beautiful movie. If you want to get to know Diane Arbus though, go to a library - if you still have one - and borrow a book of her photos. This film won't inform you of her life but I feel it will motivate you to find out about it. It's a shame though,I so wanted to say that the Chimp who played Robert Downey Jr was really good....

Following in the footsteps of revolutionary photographer Robert Frank, Diane Arbus was one of the three (Gary Winogrand, Lee Friedlander) photographers displayed in a groundbreaking photo exhibit entitled New Documents at MOMA in 1967. Less than five years later she would commit suicide her place in photographic history assured. In Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus director Steven Shainberg moves her subconscious into an apartment upstairs from her in a novel way to get inside the head of the troubled artist who had an irresistible desire for nostalgie de la boule.With the support of her parents Allan and Diane Arbus (Nichol Kidman) are in he the midst of realizing the American dream with a burgeoning photography business. Allan the photographer and Diane the assistant along with her parents money and connections seem focused on a successful future. But something is gnawing at Diane in the repressive Fifties where a woman's role in the family is to support the husband and raise the kids. Whether it's manic depression or artistic drive is hard to tell but when her furry muse (Robert Downey Jr.) moves in upstairs she's ready for a walk on the wild side. This insipid approach is ridiculous from the outset. It is more fairy tale than imaginary with it's Beauty and the Beast veneer and Kidman's wallflower Arbus whispering her performance as if she were in a confessional. Parents and husband are perfunctory distant and mystified while Downey's Sasquatch is the same self assured perceptive Downey you get in Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes except here he's Cousin It.The morose topic is poorly paced, the compositions and camera movement pretentious and self indulgent. Near the end director Shainberg attempts an 81/2 montage of many of the subjects Arbus would photograph in her prime by parading them through a scene but even this rings hollow in its presentation by sanitizing the moment, especially with her models drained of their monochromatic identity.This over two hour film on the life of Arbus imaginary or otherwise does itself no favor by concentrating almost totally on the disintegration of her marriage and finding of her voice while ignoring her most important period as an artist when the voice projected with some disturbing imagery that went beyond the contrived and manufactured. It would have allowed Kidman to stretch and avoided what Arbus rejected.

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?

I have never read or seen anything about Diane Arrbus before, so I can not comment on that. However, I find this to be the kind of movie you just gasp your way trough. I love the whole imaginary feeling and it really makes the characters pop.Perhaps a bit too long, but that's easily forgotten when you come to one of those breathtakingly beautiful outdoor scenes, or pretty much any scene between Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. Their chemistry is really amazing. And the two characters they portray makes the whole movie.As said before, a few too long scenes, and some weird music here and there that does not really seem to fit in. But all in all a gorgeous and a little bit strange movie