Factory Girl Movie
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Storyline
TAGLINES
When Andy met Edie, life imitated art.
The Fame. The Spotlight. The Scandal. The Party's About To Begin.
A beautiful, wealthy young party girl drops out of Radcliffe in 1965 and heads to New York to become Holly Golightly. When she meets a hungry young artist named Andy Warhol, he promises to make her the star she always wanted to be. And like a super nova she explodes on the New York scene only to find herself slowly lose grip on reality...
| Sienna Miller | Edie Sedgwick |
| Guy Pearce | Andy Warhol |
| Hayden Christensen | Musician |
| Jimmy Fallon | Chuck Wein |
| Jack Huston | Gerard Malanga |
| Armin Amiri | Ondine |
| Tara Summers | Brigid Polk |
| Mena Suvari | Richie Berlin |
| Shawn Hatosy | Syd Pepperman |
| Beth Grant | Julia Warhol |
| James Naughton | Fuzzy Sedgwick |
| Edward Herrmann | James Townsend |
| Illeana Douglas | Diana Vreeland |
| Mary Elizabeth Winstead | Ingrid Superstar |
| Don Novello | Mort Silvers |
| George Hickenlooper |
6.10 out of 10 (3189 votes)
Visitor Reviews
OK! umm Miller you act GOOD and we should look out for you and thats about it! and OH! her HOT scenes.....
posted on 24 Aug 2009UMMM!!! well there's nothing much to say is there!Miller is Fantastic in her role! i loved her in her part. the guy who did ANDY was also VERY GOOD!Hayden Christensen was almost HORRID!this is a Movie showcasing a life of a GIRL who made all the wrong choices. well i did feel sympathy for her. and i did feel for the CHARACTER. but he movie wasn't really holding my INTEREST.i thought that the NUDE scenes of Miller were out there just to KEEP people around. she's HOT alright and she seems pretty COMFORTABLE. and i am proud of her. she seems to me the most COMFORTABLE woman to do nude scenes. and doing such scenes isn't a big issue.RATHER its a BIG issue for ACTORS. or even a BIG ISSUE for someone who sang "SEXY BACK" Mister Justin.anyways this is a nice movie but it goes a BIT Slow and might not hold many people's interest. Not a really enjoyable film. But not necessarily a Bad Film either.all in all i will give it a 6.5/10. GOOD ACTING!
"Horses have whiskerrrrrs"
posted on 12 Aug 2009Like most movies of this type, they're not very true and tend to displease a lot of people. It's only normal. Directors like to eff up amazing life stories. But Factory Girl didn't make me feel this way, to my surprise. Despite the fact that i'm very aware of both Andy Warhol, Edie and that whole Factory scene.From the very beginning Ii was fortunate enough to let my mind figure out that comparing the characters in the movie to the people in real life would be a painful and unpleasant waste of time, so I didn't do that.The movie turned out to be a lovely one, in short. It had a great vibe, it was nice to look at, and to me it is very important in movies that depict the 60s or 70s. The people, the places, the things, the make-up, the outfits. I can give 6 stars to the movie just for that fact alone (come to think of it, it's very much like the way I felt about Coppola's Marie Antoinette, another movie I adore but others simply don't).And I loved the quite irrelevant bits and pieces that, well, to me made certain moments of the movie even more enjoyable. For example. The scene where Andy and Edie were on the phone, talking about their death wouldn't have attracted my attention that much if it weren't for the way it was shot - Andy sitting on the staircase, surrounded by piles of magazines or something, and Edie playing with the little crystals hanging from the chandelier. It was just so..nice to watch.A pretty, pretty movie. It had it's flaws, mostly involving Christensen and the cheesy ending, but hey, I can live with that and appreciate the movie, the artsy side of it.
An amazing movie, great character work, and direction. Truly a good movie.
posted on 02 Aug 2009I saw this movie, at a screening, and I went in with low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised, Sienna pulled off the role as Edie. Guy Pearce was phenomenal as Andy, "Billy Quinn" could have been.. different, but hayden did fine in the role, and was more like his acting skills in life as a house (meaning good) than star wars. Overall, I'd suggest seeing this in theatres. IF you are a big edie fan, you may be more critical than others. I love Edie, and still like this movie. For the girls, it had some great wardrobe as well, and some laugh out loud, memorable one liners. Sure, there are some holes in the script, but for a movie this was well done. The direction of it was not to portray Edie or Andy as people have heard, as low , vapid people who lived meaningless "soap-opera" lives. I left the movie feeling good about how it was shown. I HOPE everyone else does as well.
There are many fallacies in the film
posted on 23 Jun 2009I just copy and paste the paragraph below form a web site. And actually I understood the argument below when I just watched the film. There is something going wrong in the film. I neither believed Warhol forced Edie into this darkness nor I believed that Bob Dylan was such a jerk."Andy Warhol was often blamed for Edie Sedgwick's descent into drug addiction and mental illness. However, before meeting Warhol, Edie had been in mental hospitals twice and came from a family with a history of mental illness. She was only close to Warhol for about a year, from approximately March 1965 to February 1966.Another fallacy was that Warhol ditched Edie after using her up whereas the truth was that it was Edie's decision to leave the Factory, lured by promises of stardom by Bob Dylan and his manager, leaving Andy feeling slightly betrayed." http://www.warholstars.org/stars/edie.html
No insights or revelations, just rumor and speculation
posted on 03 Jun 2009George Hickenlooper 2006 film 'Factory Girl' tells the story of socialite turned Andy Warhol darling, Edie Sedgwick – specifically the film concentrates on Sedgwick dropping out of college in 1965 and journeying to New York where she gets swept up in Warhol's factory life. Sedgwick (Sienna Miller), a magnetic sweetheart with chandelier earrings, panda eyes and a definite air of old money about her has Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce) completely enchanted and for a little while he concentrates all of his artistic pursuits around her. While in 'the factory' – Warhol's cool art space loft, Sedgwick tries to keep up with the assortment of crazy factory characters and their drug-taking escapades. At the height of his obsession with her however, Warhol is crushed to see Sedgwick begin to fall in love with up and coming musician Billy Quinn (Hayden Christensen) and their odd relationship takes a turn for the worst, with Sedgwick suffering the consequences of Warhol's jealous scorn. Hickenlooper's film attempts to flesh out the bewildering and enchanting Edie Sedgwick – a woman whose celebrity lives on long after her 1971 death. Sedgwick has been cropping up quite a lot lately in current popular culture, at a time when fashion is once again all about the vintage and retro, fashionistas have been looking back to one of the original Manhattan socialites whose style could even rival that of beloved Carrie Bradshaw. Tights and over-sized jumpers, caked on black eyeliner, big earrings – it was all Edie's doing. Comparisons have been drawn between Edie and a few current celebrities, such as Paris Hilton. Both being old money socialites who became famous for doing, nothing much really. Of course Edie appeared in numerous Andy Warhol films and photograph's, but it was her beauty that captivated him. And Paris Hilton.... well, all she has to do is strike a pose (or drive without a license) and she makes the cover of a magazine. All of this current fascination with the enigmatic figure of Edie Sedgwick has led to this film being made – and you can understand Hickenlooper's thinking that Edie is an interesting enough character that a film about her life will draw audiences in. However, watching 'Factory Girl' you realize how difficult it is to actually create a film about Miss Sedgwick, since so little is known about her, she really was a mystery. The film concentrates on her meeting Andy Warhol, being swept up in the factory life and her brief romance with Bob Dylan (a not so clever pseudonym of 'Billy Quinn' in the film, as per Bob Dylan's request – which is entirely fruitless and very uncool, IMO). The film could not be a rigid biography, since as I said, so little is known about Sedgwick – instead the story is created from Andy Warhol quotes about his muse and public rumor and speculation about her romance with Bob Dylan (the song 'leopard skin pill box hat' is supposedly about Edie). And it shows that the film has no real rock foundation. Edie's history with her father who sexually abused her as a young girl is repeatedly mentioned, but never explored in depth. Warhol's jealousy about her relationship with Bob Dylan is presented as being the reason for his dismissal of her, and in turn the beginning of her downward spiral in facing a life without Warhol – but this explanation seems inadequate. Sienna Miller does a competent job as the interesting 'it' girl – which mustn't have been too much of a stretch for Miller, since she herself became an 'it' girl when she started dating actor Jude Law and suddenly her outfits were in every women's magazine. She has the voice and gestures of Edie down-pat, and by God she does have an eerie resemblance to her – but the performance is nothing spectacular, thanks in large part to a script that skims over the top of any emotional exploration of Edie's persona. Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol is magnificent. Warhol actually has a lot more depth than Edie in the film, it's a small thing, but much is made of his skin problem and the idea he has of himself as 'ugly' and therefore unlovable. Pearce has Warhol down to a tee, and his performance is fascinating. Hayden Christensen isn't worth much, once again because of poor character development, but in the end I just really could not stand his character. The filmmakers tried to soften up Bob Dylan a little bit, for one thing they had Edie and Dylan break up before she finds out about his secret wedding (which it is implied took place shortly after their break up, not while they were dating) but this minor change does nothing to make the character of Billy Quinn any more likable. All in all the film's pitfall is that it offers us nothing new about Edie. It is nothing but the basic facts of her life that at this point, most people know about. It is based on rumor and speculation and does not go any further into her life. In fact, the film highlights its own pitfall – that it tells the story of a period in Edie's life that has lost interest for people because they have already heard or read so much about it already. At the end of the film, a small caption tells us that Edie married one Michael Post in 1971, a fellow rehab patient, and died that same year at the age of 28. That would have made for a more interesting film. I doubt many people know of that marriage or what happened in the last year of her life to finally drive her to suicide, accidental or otherwise.Basically, 'Factory Girl' is a forgettable film about a fascinating celebrity.
Okay
posted on 24 May 2009Oh, wow...Factory Girl centers on East Coast socialite Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller), who in the '60s was considered Andy Warhol's muse, was linked romantically to Bob Dylan, and eventually died of a drug overdose at 28. The story starts as Sedgwick, like a contemporary Paris Hilton, becomes a tabloid fixture on the New York social scene. Warhol (Guy Pearce) brings Edie into his Factory workshop, populated by boho artsy types who spend all day indulging Warhol's artistic fantasies. When Edie quickly scales the social ladder as Andy's pal, she meets a Bob Dylan-like rock star (Hayden Christensen). Edie reaches a social stratosphere quickly, but it is fleeting, and she spirals downward, lashing out at everyone, especially Warhol. Edie dies sadly, dismissed by some of the ones who loved her best.
A Waste Of Time
posted on 04 May 2009It is very rare that you see people walk out of a theater within 40 minutes of the opening credits, but I counted 8. I should have been the 9th. Horrible dialogue (and, if it is the actual words, these people had nothing worthwhile to say!), the "Dylan" character completely unconvincing and the acting, save for Sienna Miller, who seemed to be trying, nothing more than uninspired. I think it would have been better if there was a documentary of Edie Sedgewick, at least then it may have been less haphazard. You try, but you just don't care about these people, and in a biopic (sort of) thats just not tolerable. If anyone wants to learn of Edie, you'd best read "Edie", the fascinating book edited by Jean Stein and George Plimpton. I bet those 8 people who left early did, which is probably why they hated it so much.
Moving, manipulative bio of a flaming star
posted on 28 Apr 2009Forty years before Paris Hilton, there was Edie Sedgwick- a beautiful heiress who was New York's "It Girl" for a brief moment in the mid-Sixties. Introduced to Andy Warhol, she was the first of a series of "Superstars" that came out of his studio-cum-salon "The Factory". Edie's association with him barely lasted a year, and her later decline unfolded outside the spotlight. It has been suggested that her experience is what inspired Warhol to issue his famous comment about fifteen minutes of fame.Sedgwick's actual life history lends itself very easily to the fallen-angel plot structure employed in "Factory Girl". Sienna Miller is truly stunning in the title role. She brings Edie to life and makes the viewer care about her, while being still willing to show her many contradictions and shortcomings as a person. Miller portrays a dazzlingly beautiful young woman who is also ambitious, vulnerable, passionate, overwhelmed by relationships with controlling men, and horribly reliant on others for self-definition. She also captures the force-of-nature aspect of the real Edie Sedgwick, who by all accounts was one of those individuals whose charisma could simply "light up the room" The film also succeeds in capturing a very specific moment in the Sixties when two drastically different generations and cultures were trying to interact- as illustrated by Edie persuading her parents' moneyed friends to buy Warhol's artwork."Factory Girl" founders when it becomes clear that the leading actress and the director have very different visions of who Edie was. Sienna Miller portrays her as a complicated young woman who played a very active role in her eventual downfall, deliberately choosing not to save herself despite many opportunities to do so. In contrast, director George Hickenlooper appears to want to portray Edie as nothing more than a victim of a scene populated by ruthless and amoral people who think little of corrupting an innocent for their own ends, and then discarding her when she has outlived her usefulness. The outcome of this makes the viewer feel that two films are playing simultaneously- one being a sophisticated character study, and the other sometimes being little more than an After-School special (remember kids, drugs are BAD!).However, when all is said and done "Factory Girl" is worth seeing for Sienna Miller's powerhouse performance, and as a snapshot of a long-gone moment in the history of popular culture. For those who wish to learn more about Edie Sedgwick, the 1982 biography "Edie" by Jean Stein is also well worth reading.
A wonderfully done movie about Edie Sedgwick's life/life at the Factory.
posted on 26 Apr 2009I saw this movie and I thought it was wonderful. I'm a huge fan of Edie Sedgwick and I know a lot about her/the factory/Andy Warhol. Of course the film wasn't 100% accurate (it was never meant to be), but I thought it was wonderful and they did stay pretty true to Edie's real life. (It reminds me of 'Marie Antoinette' and how Coppolla said she didn't intend for the film to be historically accurate and people still complained about it). I don't think they could've picked a better actress to play Edie Sedgwick, Sienna Miller looked exactly like her in the film and also did a wonderful job portraying Sedgwick. Guy Pearce was amazing as well. Hayden was also pretty good, he wasn't even in the film that long and he wasn't 'horrible' like everyone is claiming. I think people should give this movie a chance before criticizing it so harshly...go in with an open mind and I think you'll enjoy it very much. It is now one of my favorite films!
a great movie
posted on 04 Apr 2009I must disagree with all the negative comments which surround this movie. I think it is a brilliantly made movie, the acting by Sienna Miller is fantastic and she looks so similar to Edie. The movie is more original, well filmed and well written than anything else out at the moment. People who know a little about Andy Warhol and the factory etc. will undoubtedly enjoy it more than those who go in with no background knowledge. It is also important to remember that nowhere at the start of the film does this say this is a true account of Edie's life so there are bound to be a few discrepancies. Enjoy it for what it is, a well acted and filmed insight into the life and scenes of Edie and the factory days.
I quite liked it
posted on 25 Mar 2009As I studied Andy Warhol at school I was intrigued to see this movie. After I watched it I wanted to know more about Edie Sedgwick, and I found that the movie did make up quite a lot of the storyline, most namely the affair with the "Bob Dylan" inspired character played by Hayden Christensen. I haven't seen any movies where Andy Warhol has been portrayed before, and as I'm Australian I love the Aussie actors and think that Guy Pearce did a great job at portraying the very odd Warhol. Sienna MIller was OK, it looked like she was putting it on a bit, maybe a little unconvincing but from other reviews I have read that Edie Sedgwick actually did act like that so I could be totally wrong. The drug use was pretty full on and some of the film making scenes were a bit confronting. There are a few things I want to know about in more depth. Did Warhol and Sedgwick really end in that way and was he really that much of an A-hole to her in the end and totally replacing her for someone else. Also, the way she goes on about how her father was a molester (she doesn't actually ever say he slept with her i don't think but I got the idea that he did that to her). The story about her brother hanging himself. True? When she was drugged by that guy and apparently had sex with him and the guy who knew Alfred HItchcock, did they really film it? and was she really taking heroin?The movie is overall a good story, but I can see why people who are Edie fans would not like the way in which she has been portrayed. But for the pure fact that if someone knows nothing about Edie, this movie I think is really good. A bit predictable but really good.Whether the makers differentiate if its only BASED on a true story or an actual true story is questionable as well since many of the reviewers believe the movie is very untrue.Overall a good entertaining but quite sad movie. Sad because the end part is true.
Not nearly as bad as it's made out to be.
posted on 03 Mar 2009Better than I had expected. Is the story a bit aimless? Yes. Does it randomly introduce/evict characters for the sole reason that they were parts of Edie's life? Yes. Is it just an hour and forty minutes of Edie going to fabulous parties, meeting fabulous people and slowly declining into a complete wreck of drugs and poverty? Very much so. But I felt that the film did an accurate job of depicting Edie's life, since all that happened were parties, socializing and a terrible downfall. I mean her brother and widow have stated that it's an accurate portrayal, so I don't see how one could disagree. That being said, the film is clearly just a device to propel Sienna Miller's extraordinary performance. Her transformation into Edie Sedgwick is the most precise and utterly flawless portrayal of a real life person I've ever seen. It's quite easily the second best performance of last year (the first being Hard Candy's Ellen Page) and one of the top five female performances of all time. Guy Pearce is also quite fantastic, and Hayden Christensen was much better than I expected him to be. Overall, the film is nothing special. It's not necessarily bad, but it surely isn't great. It's all about Sienna.
A Nutshell Review: Factory Girl
posted on 27 Feb 2009It took me that long to finally watch Factory Girl, a story which tells of a wealthy party girl, a poor little rich kid's trials and tribulations, her parties and the friends she keeps, her influences and vices ranging from hard drinking to drug taking. No, it's not about Paris Hilton (you can wager some money that one will be out in future), but probably a precursor to her, a woman called Edie Sedgwick, who lived and died hard and fast. It's not the first time where we have rich young girls choosing a totally different career path for herself, the other in recent memory being Domino Harvey, played by Keira Knightley in Domino.Sienna Miller has an uncanny facial resemblance to the real Edie Sedgwick, and hence an almost automatic choice in taking on the character. This movie brings us on a journey of her very short life, having passed away before reaching 30 years of age. We see the wrong choices she makes in life, her clueless attitude in coasting along with her drug addiction and decadent celebrity lifestyle, having been brought about Superstardom by the famous Andy Warhol (an almost unrecognizable Guy Pearce) through his casting her in his avant garde movies, and constant media praising.The factory in Factory Girl refers to Andy Warhol's studio, a warehouse where he lets his creativity run free. Akin to Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion if I may say, where you see plenty of leeches doing what they do best, and that's to kiss Warhol's rear. In some ways, Factory Girl examines how Warhol has a huge impact to Sedgwick's life, her being his muse, and frequently seen and photographed together. But the portrayal here makes him look very much a pompous prick who has problems with his own sexuality, though adopting a very protective attitude towards his exploited creations, nary sharing his wealth with his posse, who are probably satisfied with licking up the crumbs that get fallen off the table.But the more peculiar bit of casting and characterization, is that of Hayden Christensen's "Musician", an amalgamation of boyfriends that Sedgwick has, but implicitly, and quite obviously through the make up and costumes, that Bob Dylan's the one being referred to here. While we see how the clash of egos between Warhol and Musician comes to drastically affect Sedgwick's life, the movie didn't evoke any sense of pity on Sedgwick, and more often than not, makes us feel that she deserves whatever punishment that Life is dishing out to her.The presentation styles adopted in this movie by George Hickenlooper were pretty mixed, constantly shifting visual techniques from documentary styled interviews, to the incorporation of remade avant garde movies, from colour to black and white. While the focus is supposed to be on Edie Sedgwick given the title, in reality, Andy Warhol as a character gets to share just about as much spotlight, probably because he's the more famous of the two, and Guy Pearce looks like a carbon copy of the real deal, taking a leaf out of Philip Seymour Hoffman's playing of Truman Capote, only with an increased amount of meanness.When the end credits rolled, interviews with real friends and relatives tell us a little bit more on Edie, but I felt it was too little too late, that the movie itself squandered this opportunity to tell a more compelling narration of her life. Instead, those interested in more would probably hit Wikipedia and do some reading up on Andy Warhol, and Edie Sedgwick.
Just another tale of a rich celebrity's downfall
posted on 15 Feb 2009This movie was about like watching one of VH1s Behind the Music except call this behind the Artist. It's another tale of a rich, famous beautiful girl whose life falls apart mainly because of drugs and her dysfunctional family. Edie Sedgwick comes from a very rich family and is living in New York. She gets involved with Andy Warhol and being in his movies and his scene. They go out clubbing and she gets started into heavy drug use. She spends money like crazy and eventually her trust fund starts to run dry. She thinks others should feel sorry for her because she's been in a psych hospital and one of her brothers killed himself there. Another brother died in an accident. Warhol eventually gets tired of her and she's basically a mess, begging for money.The acting was good in this, especially Guy Pearce. I don't know much about Warhol since I don't give a hoot about art, but from what I've read, he seemed to have a dead on personation. And Sienna Miller played about the only role she's believable in, a messed up socialite.FINAL VERDICT: If you don't know much about Warhol, I say skip this.
Great Earrings
posted on 11 Feb 2009Before seeing this film, I had read the bad reviews. After seeing the trailer, I went to see the film and didn't understand why all the negative reviews. After seeing the film, I re-read "Edie-An American Biography" and thought the movie captured the book perfectly, right down to some of the actual dialog from the book. Make-up, hair and costumes are excellent and I found Sienna Miller's portrayal of this tragic life nothing short of brilliant. I've seen better Warhol's than Guy Pearce, but the movie was about Edie's short life, not Warhol's. Edie chose to live her life way over the top and I think this film depicts that in every aspect.
Disappointing but strong acting
posted on 14 Jan 2009Sienna Miller gives a surprisingly strong performance as Edie Sedgwick in 'Factory Girl' - she and Guy Pearce as (a rather sinister) Andy Warhol, are the main reasons to see the movie. The film itself does not rise above standard biopic fare and as such, there's a worrying amount of pop psychology. Considering the rich atmosphere with which its dealing (Warhol's Factory at its peak) you might be surprised at the grimness of mood. It's a shame, really, because it should be a lot more fun than it really is - perhaps Miller herself, who makes us feel a bit too much and by the end, the downfall is unpleasant to watch. Still, there are good scenes (the best being when Edie is replaced by Ingrid Superstar) and some strong performances but there are big problems. Jimmy Fallon's character accompanies Edie to New York - he's rather conservative when we see him, but then suddenly there he is as part of Warhol's entourage and never really says anything until he coaxes Edie during filming. No explanation is given - were scenes excised? He just droops around in the background rather strangely. Even worse is the Dylanesque character played by Hayden Christensen. It's a really lousy performance - amateurish with a couple of external mannerisms thrown in and it never convinces. The same can be said for his relationship with Edie that draws the action to a swift halt - it never recovers.
What an Embarrassing Piece of Garbage
posted on 12 Jan 2009Can you say BORING??? I decided to rent this DVD to watch with a group of close friends, based on the great reviews on the package, and the fact that the premise sounded so good. What I encountered was an absolute piece of CRAP that should never have even been released, even to DVD. It was so painful to sit through, hoping desperately that it would get better, until finally it had to be turned off to keep everyone from falling asleep. Disgraceful writing, abominable acting, directing and camera work. The producer/director should be so ashamed of this turkey. Yadda Yadda Yadda...have to have enough lines here....Yadda Yadda Yadda. Trust me...steer clear of this one at ALL COSTS!!!!
one dimensional all the way through
posted on 17 Dec 2008I knew a lot about Edie Sedgwick before seeing the film and was even prepared for inaccuracies but the major problem with this film is that it is inaccurate not for the purpose of making a point but that it is inaccurate for the purpose of making a one-dimensional film.Did Hickenlooper paint Edie as a perpetual victim (notice how throughout the film she is never injecting herself but is bent over while others inject her?) just so that he could show her as a victim of Andy Warhol and his drug fiend factory friends? Or that she was always a victim of people like her friend Chuck who did a complete turn on her for that villain Andy? Is Hickenlooper trying to say that the biggest mistake of Edie's life was not choosing Dylan over Warhol in that elevator scene where her future self voices over, "that was the biggest mistake of my life"? Edie Sedgwick came to the factory a sick person, she was already headed for a crash even before she set eyes on Andy Warhol. In reality, she was rejected by the factory friends and many others for the drugs she brought with her everywhere, she was not introduced to them at the factory as the movie shows.Hickenlooper seems to me to be trying to say that Edie Sedgwick, that fresh faced wasp in knee socks and pearls who left Cambridge with sketches tucked under her arms could have potentially had a wonderful and peaceful life, even a stable marriage with Bob Dylan had she only not met Andy Warhol and been subject of those movies.I have a problem with this film because I am so interested, most people are, in the real Edie Sedgwick and I agree with another poster who suggested you see Ciao!Manhattan to get a better sense of who she was. If you want a tragic love-story about a good girl who chose the wrong guy, watch Factory Girl.The real Edie Sedgwick was a person whose hystrionics and drugs were symptoms of a soul that was always trying to fly away, for her the world was always too small and her pain was always too big, and she lived her life as though she dreamed of having her wings singed flying too close to the sun.
Beautiful Stranger
posted on 09 Dec 2008While this is no masterpiece, it is not all wrong either. Sienna Miller and Guy Pearce are first-rate and many of the supporting actors are good. In the commentary, the director says he conceptualized it as a love story between a gay man (Warhol) and a straight woman (Edie). That unusual concept explains much of what we see and don't see in the film. Warhol is depicted as a total user but a mitigating factor was his emotional disability, somewhat paralleling Edie's. They managed to influence each other positively for a while, but rich girl was lousy at collections. Warhol partisans may resent the film for being insufficiently pro-Warhol, but he is not the main character and the film will have zero effect on his place in art history. The introduction of the Dylanesque character and the 'love triangle' is more problematic. He's got the authentic thing going on, but the bottom line seems to be that --post-authentic sex-- she was more interested in him than he was interested in her, and he had no problem moving on. (It bes that way sometimes.) Again, does that diminish his art? Not at all. Aficionados of the Dylanesque need not worry. Hickenlooper also comments that he wanted Edie to be sympathetic, as she is, throughout the film. Judging from her childhood, she was lucky to make it to 28, though at times she may have milked the miserable childhood theme for her own advantage. Anyway, the story of Edie is undeniably sad. It could be that another faction of the film's detractors wanted it to be less so.
A terrible after-school special version of Edie's story
posted on 24 Aug 2009The film is cliché after cliché, with two-dimensional characters and a flat, uninspired script. To be fair, Sienna Miller does a wonderful job with the material she's been given. Sadly, it's not a lot to work with.One of the major flaws in Factory Girl is that there is no character that you can like. I wasn't sure who I was supposed to care about, possibly because no character was ever developed enough to get past their surface. It's hard to portray Andy Warhol in film, after all of the versions that have been done, and his own status as more icon than man. This film only proved the point, by playing him in a way that felt more like a parody than a person.Over and over again, the film takes the easy road, from its After School Special depiction of drug use to the predictable dialogue, walks through Central Park, even the establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower to show "hey, look, they're in Paris!"New York looks like a studio set, and the filmmakers give the impression that they aren't even familiar with the city. A cab is told to go to "2nd Avenue and Fifth," where somehow a massive concert is taking place - despite the fact that the address is in the East Village, with only mom & pop stores and small bars in the area. The casting is nothing if not bizarre. Hayden Christensen as Bob Dylan, sorry, "Billy Quinn," comes off as an opinionated (though incredibly fit and Gentile) jerk with a guitar, Guy Pearce is too attractive for Andy, while Sienna Miller doesn't have Edie's soft beauty.The greatest crime is that this will be many people's first introduction to Edie Sedgwick, and they will go away with an impression of a simple, disposable girl - with none of her glamour, whose problems can be neatly wrapped up in a few lines about her father. Her entry into Andy's world is nothing more than an entrance to a party, and her fall is just a soap opera decline.If you have any interest in Edie Sedgwick at all, do yourself a favor and watch Ciao Manhattan, but by all means, avoid Factory Girl.