Problem hair.

Fur

* Directed by Steven Shainberg; written by Erin Cressida Wilson * Starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. * Picturehouse

While most remember the S/M comedy Secretary as a showcase for rising star Maggie Gyllenhaal, it proved equally auspicious for its director Steven Shainberg and adapter Erin Cressida Wilson, whose assured collaboration kept the movie from teetering off its very tricky tightrope. Would that the two could provide the same balance for their latest effort, Fur, which eschews a straight-ahead biography of Diane Arbus in favor of a fantasy in which the noted photographer (played by Nicole Kidman) meets a fur-covered neighbor (Robert Downey Jr.) who introduces her to the outre subjects that will find their way into her work.

It's a novel approach to a film, but the invented characters and situations fail to work on their own terms, acting only as metaphors that will seem on-the-nose to Arbus fans and baffle those unfamiliar with her work. Kidman and Downey give committed performances (Kidman's portrayal of a slightly maddened housewife echoes her work in the superior Birth), but it's all in the service of a movie so mannered that it needs nothing more than a good James Spader--administered spanking.--K.B.