Portrait d'une muse

Greetings again from the darkness. Andy Warhol and The Factory poses quite the challenge to any filmmaker attempting to capture the look, feel and pain of that world unto itself. Director George Hickenlooper's best work has been "Mayor of Sunset Strip" and "Dogtown", neither of which drew much of an audience. "Factory Girl" probably has little hope of attracting much attention from movie-goers as well.

While we do spend a good portion of the film in The Factory, this is more the tragic story of Edie, rather than an insightful look at Warhol's art. Edie was really the first to make being famous a job ... think Paris Hilton today. No real talent herself, her name, family money and looks got her inside the art world and exceptionally close to Warhol. Of course, those things were not enough to carve out any real territory and the ending, while tragic, is not at all surprising.

The film is overly choppy in attempting to find the right look and feel and yet with Jagger, Velvet Underground and the Dylanesque Hayden Christensen, the importance and power of music for this era is clearly established. Aussie Guy Pearce does a nice impersonation of Warhol and Jimmy Fallon has his first serious role. Other support comes from Mena Suvari as Edie's friend, Beth Grant as Warhol's mom, Don Novello (Father Guido from early SNL), and Illeana Douglas as Diana Vreeland.

By far the best part of this project is the performance of Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick. Even her vocal cadence is remarkable. The physical and emotional turmoil seems very real as Edie goes from top of world to desperation for life. Ms. Miller will at some point break out and become the film star she is destined to become. That role has just not quite happened yet. It could be later this year when she re-teams with her "Layer Cake" director. Let's hope so. Her talent is undeniable and although it is a pleasure to see her performance as Edie, she deserves a much wider audience.

The weakness of the film is best shown by the interviews over the closing credits. Attempting to explain what we had just watched is a pure indication that the job had not been done well.

Not the best biopic I've seen recently (actually saw it on DVD last night). I have read "Edie" by Jean Stein about a million times, so I could figure out a lot about what was wrong in the movie. I also thought the use of the musician character was quite amusing, simply because he was supposed to be a portrayal of Bob Dylan, and from what I have read, Bob Dylan barely even remembers Edie Sedgwick.

Another goof I caught in the movie was when Edie was listing all the popular drugs at the Factory, was that Adderall was mentioned. This drug did not come out until 1996. I was rather surprised it was mentioned, because if they had been on methylphenidate at the time, Ritalin was probably their drug of choice. It was available at the time. I myself have been on Adderall (for ADHD) for a very brief period in the 90s, and it was really horrible...I can't possibly imagine anyone wanting to be on that thing.

In the 90s I knew a guy who had been Warhol's room mate in the 1950s and a very, very minor character in Andy's later life, I asked him once if he ever knew Edie, and he just groaned and said, "she was the MOST BORING girl I ever met in my life." End of discussion.

Interesting bio pic about Edie Sedgwick, a young woman from a well to do family who fell into Warhol's orbit.

I saw this on broadcast TV, so the nudity, and even someone lighting up a joint, was blurred out -please we're all grown ups here.

If anything, this is a cautionary tale of allowing cult hero worship and the promise of fame to cloud ones judgement. Edie Sedgwick, aside from her mental and emotional issues, was essentially a decent person lured by false promises into Warhol's "Factory." He and his soul sucking vampire entourage of hangers on basically destroyed this woman.

The cast was good, not a bad movie all in all.

Other related movies, "Ciao Manhattan" and "Basquiat."

It's not a documentary.

Just in case you read some of the rather hysterical comments and garner the impression that it's supposed to be about real people, it's not. Andy Warhol was never a real person, just a performance.

Guy Pearce presents Andy Warhol as the superficial creature he undoubtedly was. The original art-as-business creator, the very God at whose altar such modern day charlatans as Damien Hirst worship. Pearce's performance is riveting, his Andy Warhol is as empty as his crapulous art; just a two-dimensional diagram of someone who leaves no shadow. A cartoon.

Sienna Miller's performance as Edie Sedgewick is the best thing she's ever done. Caught in the strobe lights of Warhol's strangely sterile world of non-sexual sex and sofas still in their plastic wrappers, Edie becomes the focus of his short attention span for a while. She flashes across the screen like a speeded up Holly Golighty, while Warhol's voyeuristic viewfinder traps her in it's leering stare. The camera loves her and so does Warhol. But we know it's going to end in tears.

Nothing in the movie has much depth, none of the characters are developed beyond what we already know about them and the whole sixties New York scene is represented by a series of iconic "things". The Chelsea Hotel, the Velvet Underground, a soundtrack of songs that sound right but which actually don't fit at all. For instance, "Leavin' here" by The Birds, a British group in which Ronnie Wood was the guitarist, was recorded in 1966 but was never released in America. However, there it is on the soundtrack being played in the factory sometime in 1965.

But no matter.

The movie pretty much captures the shallow, transient and utterly facile world of Warhol in the sixties and in another way it sums up the emptiness and tragedy of the Hollywood dream machine too. But it doesn't ask any deep questions nor does it pretend to be something it's not. It's entertaining and worth watching for two very good performances by Guy Pearce and Sienna Miller.

It's not art, it's just a movie, albeit a superficial one.

Alright yea its a mess, but going in KNOWING it is a mess allowed me to view this film with more forgiveness than the average film critic was willing to shell out.

First off there's the acting which is all over the place, some people are doing great while others aren't allowed enough room. Casting Sienna Miller was a good call, its a difficult role to cast but if they felt they had to go with a "name" then Sienna was the right choice. As for Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol, that really worked and its a true shame that the film was such a mess you couldn't realize that Guy Pearce was turning in an excellent performance. Especially if you have seen his work in L.A. Confidential and Memento, I had to remind myself a few times oh yea thats Guy Pearce. Had Factory Girl functioned as a GOOD FILM Guy Pearce would have received much more acclaim.

As for Hayden Christensen, I like him alright as an actor but his role as the Bob Dylan-esquire Musician just wasn't allowed much room. He was crammed into a corner spouting out cliché lines and trying his best to do an impression rather than an interpretation. This film was around 90 minutes long, and it should have been around 2 hours long considering all of the significant characters. You can't just brush by Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan (even though they don't officially call the Bob Dylan character Bob Dylan).

What I did like about this movie was that Warhol was portrayed as a little bit cold and detached, but Sedgwick was portrayed as being equally messed up and responsible for her own downfall. So the blame wasn't placed anywhere. Having actors like Jimmy Fallon and one of the Olsen twins in this movie only made me go "what are they doing here?" Pearce and Miller really did give it there all, and even that wasn't enough to elevate this sometimes incoherent mess. Its a mess, but I was still interested thanks to the two leads. I can't wait until Sienna Miller is given a lead role in a GOOD movie.