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Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 13 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Erin Cressida Wilson
Patricia Bosworth (book Diane Arbus)
Directed by: Steven Shainberg
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 10, 2006
DVD: May 8, 2007
Running Time: 122 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for graphic nudity, some sexuality and language
Starring Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr., Ty Burrell, Harris Yulin, Jane Alexander, Emmy Clarke, and Genevieve McCarthy
Fur creates a ravishing imaginary portrait of the visionary artist Diane Arbus. Much as an actual Arbus photo transports us into strange and unfamiliar worlds, Fur travels through the looking glass to explore the transformation of a shy woman into a powerfully original artist. (Picturehouse)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Secretary
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Much of the film is as strange and oddly beautiful as one of Arbus' own photographs, bold in its attempt to find new ways of cracking the biopic chestnut and sensitive in its portrayal of a 1950s woman who, like so many of her contemporaries, finds herself imprisoned in a "Good Housekeeping" nightmare.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
The result is a revelatory, challenging and deeply affecting portrait, anchored by what may be Kidman's most profoundly moving performance to date.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Kidman brings her character to life with a fey, moth-to-the-flame enthrallment that's both touching and fascinating.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Purists will howl at the liberties Shainberg has taken with the facts, but there's a bravery to Fur, an uncompromising commitment to its narrow focus -- of one woman's creative birth -- that rhymes with Arbus's own artistic courage.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
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.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Fur is that rare movie that's TOO understated, so quiet and deliberate that it effectively buries consuming passions.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
This is a Beauty & the Beast romance between Nicole Kidman and Chewbacca.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
If the only measure of Fur's achievement was in how well it conjures the fairy-tale mood of Arbus' most memorable photos, then it is a modest success. But as a chronicle of the turning point in an artist's creative life, it falls flat on its viewfinder.
Read Full Review >Empire Angie Errigo
Far-out touches and liberal application of metaphor are compensated for by intensity and two mesmerising performances.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This arty and moody account of her formation as an artist, as its subtitle declares, is basically invented. Its nerviness only pays off in a few details and in Nicole Kidman's resourcefulness.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
This Diane Arbus, as she's portrayed by a tremulous Nicole Kidman, radiates warmth and empathy that's nowhere to be seen in the work of the real Diane Arbus. Fur is intended to be a tribute to Arbus, but it's more a fancifully embroidered tapestry of wishful thinking.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Picture is impressively crafted and acted but far too narrowly and benignly conceived to satisfy even on its own terms.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The tall, cool Kidman works hard to impersonate a woman possessed, but she's not the type of actress to fill in a role that hasn't been filled in on paper.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
Wilson and the director, Steven Shainberg, draw on Arbus's family and on many elements from her life and her art, only to turn the material into feeble nonsense.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
A misguided tribute to the woman his (Shainberg's) film identifies among "the greatest artists of the 20th century."
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Downey makes something lively, sexy and moving out of a role that's just a thin concept. But the movie feels like it's still in the darkroom.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Fur is a misfire by the talented people who four years ago gave us "Secretary," whose tongue-in-cheek approach might have served this film better, taking the edge off much of its pretensions.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Though sometimes boldly captivating, the movie is also occasionally pretentious and lurid simply for shock value.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Fur starts stylishly, and confidently, but the film dwindles down to a chamber piece in a claustrophobic chamber. Enter at your own risk.
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The movie's considerable problems are not the fault of its dedicated star, Nicole Kidman. She does her job beautifully - which, come to think of it, may be something of a problem after all.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
In the end, the sheer obviousness of Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson's take on Diane Arbus' perverse determination to examine and document the forbidden overshadows even Kidman's beautifully modulated performance, which takes Diane from brittle neurosis to a vaguely predatory ingenuousness.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Fur does what an Arbus photograph never would -- it leaves no room to imagine and removes any reason for doubt.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
In theory, there's nothing wrong with this unorthodox approach to Arbus -- attempting to explain her from the inside out. (In its way, Harmony Korine's freakfest "Gummo" is a better Arbus movie.) The trouble is that Shainberg and Wilson don't connect their conceit to anything artistically enlightening, erotic, or truly deviant.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Fiction can sometimes be used to access a deeper truth than mere fact, but in this case all it does is obscure and confuse a fascinating life story.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The result is this metabiography that says almost nothing about the great photographer's life or art.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
That's the best thing that can be said about Fur: It feels good when it's over, and if you see it with a smart friend, it's a blast to hash over afterward.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Problem: Kidman is the only one in the theater who is turned on. The rest of us are giggling.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton
Fur dares the viewer to look into the eyes of Kidman and Downey Jr. and not see a whimpering housewife with a crush on Chewbacca.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
It's as if a trumped-up biopic of Andy Warhol were to appear titled "Soup.''
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Shainberg reduces this most disturbing of all photographers to a portraitist of Halloween.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
PnArdy PnArdy gave it a2:
It's an awful freaky drama romance that features Nicole Kidman. A love story of the beauty and the beast that takes place in the beginning of a century and is based on exploration and exploitation of a fetish sexuality of a young shy woman. There's nothing sexy about it.
Billy S. gave it a6:
Don't get me wrong, Fur is a good love story. Nicole Kidman is, as always, wonderful. Robert Downey Jr. is well on his way back to the higher echelons of actors working today, and in Fur he gives his bravest performance to date. The music by Carter Burwell and Bill Pope's cinematography mesh together perfectly. The story is, like the title says- imaginative, so much in fact, that they should cut all the "arty" pretense and just call it - "Fur- An Imaginary Take on Beauty and the Beast".
Dustin gave it an8:
Nicole Kidman is perfection in this.
todd b. gave it a10:
Sublime. At the moment, film makers are ahead of film criticism.
karl k. gave it a10:
A wonderfoul movie..a sweet love story.. nicole kidman and robert downey jr are great.. unfortnuely i don't understand all these bad reviews..that's a pity, because the movie is very very good.
Julie R. gave it a10:
Whether you know a lot or a little about the life and art of photographer Diane Arbus, Shainberg's film is a wonderful fairy tale version of what could have been her artistic awakening. Both Kidman and Downey Jr. are superb in their roles as archetypes and fragile humans discovering the true nature of love. Stays with you long after the credits are over.
