Factory Girl (2006)

“I wonder if people are going to remember us?”
“What, when we're dead?”
“Yeah.”

            Unfortunately people still do remember Andy Warhol and his art. I am one person who absolutely despises Warhol. I am an Art History major so I know about him I am not just saying this because his works are completely unappealing. I understand that in the 1960s products were becoming massed produced and that was what his Campbell Soup painting and his stacked boxes was about; other artists were doing the same thing at this time as well this was not just Warhol doing it. One thing that I cannot for the life of me stand is that he is so famous for his Marilyn Monroe prints and several others when he used photographs taken other photographers. His car accident works are his own he took those pictures those are fine. People just make too much of a big deal out of Andy Warhol and I believe because of him they expect all artist to be out of the minds and weird. Now I know some oddball artistic people but not as oddball as Warhol. He built his own legend by attracting so much attention to himself and for being so weird.

            So why on earth am I ranting like a lunatic against Andy Warhol? Factory Girl is based on the story of Edie Sedgwick, a socialite and artist herself who became Warhol’s muse in the 1960s.  I have heard about Sedgwick before from learning about Warhol but I had never seen any of his films or knew too much about her before this movie.

            Edie (Sienna Miller) had been introduced to Warhol (Guy Pearce) in the mid 1960s as one artist to another. The artist likes her beauty and her little quirks. He puts in a few of his films and she becomes a hit. But Edie is most synonymous with Warhol’s “Factory” where he gathers all kinds of odd people around him and creates his works and films.

            Edie and Andy are just friends but he begins to ignore her and rejects her once she meets a musician named Billy Quinn (Hayden Christiansen). She loves Billy who begs her to get away from Andy and his Factory and go away with him but she cannot she has almost an addiction to her friendship with Andy. Once Andy rejects her, Edie’s life spirals out of control. She took speed to keep up with everyone but it turned into an addiction that nearly ruins her and in the end kills her. Her father has cut her off leaving her without any money.

            In 1970 Edie went back to California where she had lived before she moved to New York and got clean until she died of a prescription drug overdose mixed with alcohol. Edie Sedgwick was twenty-eight years old when she died.

            The cast was not bad at all. I have only ever seen the real Edie Sedgwick in pictures so I cannot say how accurate Sienna Miller was in her depiction. From other reviews Miller did a pretty good job. Guy Pearce was amazing as Andy Warhol. It was so creepy in how accurate he was. I cannot even imagine how many hours of footage he watch of the artist… I would have gone batshit if I had to do that! Hayden Christiansen was supposed to be Bob Dylan who was in a relationship with Sedgwick but the singer was going to sue if they made the character him because the movie made it look like he drove her to almost kill herself. Jimmy Fallon was not in the movie too much and I forget his character really. His character was the one who introduced Sedgwick and Warhol and then he turned into a jerk.

            Factory Girl was an interesting movie for the fact that it was very artistically made. The story of Edie Sedgwick is interesting and very sad. When the movie was finished I hated Andy Warhol even more. I only really recommend seeing the movie if you like Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick otherwise do not even bother.