Hence, Fur arrives with the enigmatic subtitle "An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" and makes no attempt at accuracy. Frankly, the story could be about any artist, and there's something fittingly pretentious about the choice of Arbus, whose icy black-and-white portraits of nudists, dwarfs, transvestites and twins, have a way of making onlookers squirm. This is, after all, the work of director-cum-provocateur Steven Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson, whose ambitious yet empty-headed Secretary told the story of a sadomasochistic relationship between a young lady and her boss.

Like Secretary, Fur operates well outside most audiences' comfort level, but this time there's a point: Who among us hasn't speculated what critical series of events inspired the century's most visionary artists? In an effort to understand, the movie invents for Arbus (the ever-fragile Nicole Kidman) an eccentric upstairs neighbor to catalyze her transformation. The man, Lionel (Robert Downey Jr.), is a former circus freak covered entirely by hair, and she is both intrigued and aroused by his condition. Arbus quits her job assisting in her husband's photo studio and begins spending time in Lionel's apartment, where color filmstrips of her childhood and dreamlike fantasies run on a 16mm projector.

At the risk of making the film seem even more obnoxiously theoretical than it already must, consider this three-story space not as Arbus' actual apartment building, but as her mind, divided into id, ego and superego. It is fitting then that a rat's nest of hair — accompanied by a golden key — should come down from above to clog her pipes and trigger her awakening.

The problem here is that Fur's love story doesn't work on a conventional level. Arbus is essentially falling in love with her true self, unlocking her long-suppressed libidinous side to discover the "real freak" within. That is how true artists are born, much to the horror of her husband, children and the majority of moviegoers, who would rather not confront the subconscious head-on. It's an artistic experiment sure to drive audiences crazy, but don't dismiss it outright. Like that first taste of sushi or your virgin encounter with jazz, there's a world of revelation waiting to be unleashed.

[as featured in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram]