Ill-Informed Gadfly

This isn’t so much a movie as a Ph.D. dissertation — an exploration of artistic temperament and the voyeuristic gaze made by very smart people who would be happy to explain to you why you don’t understand it at all. On the surface, it’s very, very silly. Director Steven Shainberg trips over himself with redundant disclaimers (as if the title isn’t enough) that hammer home the point that “Fur” is not grounded in the actual like a conventional biopic. Well, thanks! Otherwise, I would have thought Diane Arbus learned how to make art from the werewolf living in her attic! At the very least, the movie is unafraid to be weird, and I appreciate that. As a story, it never engages, but it’s never merely tedious, either. Nicole Kidman, who stars as Arbus, helps a lot, because she’s able to suggest the mixture of curiosity, empathy and unabashed fascination with which Arbus regards the unconventional subjects of her photographs. As a man covered from head to toe in silky fur, Robert Downey Jr. acquits himself admirably, too. Shainberg, though, is an odd duck. “Fur” shares so many themes and visual strategies with his previous movie, “Secretary,” that it’s practically a remake. Each climaxes with a tender sex scene that celebrates a wounded, imperfect naked human body. His style is cloistered and academic, more concerned with ideas than with depth or breadth of feeling. It’s not exactly a recipe for scintillating cinema.