Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Diane (Nicole Kidman) is her photographer husband's careful, quiet assistant, but she wants to do more with the camera than change lenses and load film. When she meets a fictional neighbor named Lionel ( Robert Downey, Jr.), he dares her to imagine another sort of life, one more sensual, more original, and less bound by convention. Intrigued when Lionel invites her to meet his friends -- a cellist without arms, a prostitute, a giant, and other folks who work as circus "freaks" -- Diane stops attending to her usual '50s housewife routines and starts listening to jazz, leaving her hair uncombed, and working with her Rolleiflex (the boxy camera she used during her career). Fur suggests that Diane's changed attitude affects her family, alarming her two children and disappointing her imperious mother. But the main focus is on Diane's imaginary romance with Lionel, which represents the next step she takes -- to become a professional photographer on her own.