Factory Girl

Cast: Sienna Miller, Guy Pearce, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Fallon
Director: George Hickenlooper
Screenplay: Aaron Richard Golub, Captain Mauzner
Cinematography: Michael Grady
U.S. Distributor: MGM

One senses that Edie Sedgwick deserves better than this. It's not that Sienna Miller doesn't throw herself into the role but the screenplay - a conglomeration of truth, half-truth, and fiction - lacks depth and the direction is just as shallow. Factory Girl hints at a greater tragedy than the one it presents. By adhering to surface details and never letting the audience get to know the title character, the movie comes across as a generic bio-pic about another lost girl of the 1960s whose 15 minutes of fame leads to a downward spiral.

The film focuses on two periods in Sedgwick's life: her 1965-66 association with Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce) and her 1966 relationship with singer/songwriter Billy Quinn (Hayden Christensen). Although Quinn is described by the filmmakers as a "composite character," the primary inspiration is Bob Dylan. Factory Girl doesn't go to great pains to hide the Quinn/Dylan connection - he is played as a dead ringer for the legendary folk singer. However, while the movie posits a sexual relationship between Dylan/Quinn and Edie, there's no factual evidence to support this contention and Dylan disputes it.

Factory Girl attempts, with limited success, to illustrate how Warhol was responsible for Edie's growth in popularity and then her eventual collapse via increasing drug use. The film's recreation of the Factory and those who frequented it is perfunctory. Despite being one-dimensional, Warhol is the best developed of the secondary characters. Likewise, Christensen seems to be channeling a bizarre mix of Dylan and James Dean, and the result sometimes borders on camp.

The real problem with Factory Girl has nothing to do with its lack of faithfulness to historical details (something for which I will rarely condemn a film). Instead, it's that director George Hickenlooper fails to make Edie a sympathetic or interesting character. The former is not necessary but the latter is vital. Edie's shallow personality is developed in beats rather than as a single, unbroken melody. The film focuses on key events but never effectively explores who she is. The tragedy of her death isn't shown; it's left to a caption to inform viewers of her eventual mistake - another critical misstep.

Depending on your view of Andy Warhol, Factory Girl is either dead-on in its portrayal or outright character assassination. As depicted with genuine creepiness by a dead-eyed Guy Pearce, Warhol is the serpent in Edie's Garden of Eden. He's a cold, vile creature whose humanity has long since been expunged. He functions as a parasite, sucking the creativity and energy from the sycophants who surround him. Bob Dylan, as represented by Billy Quinn, doesn't fare much better. Factory Girl presents him as a preening hypocrite. It's not hard to understand why Dylan was offended by the film and tried to halt its distribution.

Factory Girl presents the appearance of potential wasted - the potential to tell the heartbreaking story of one young woman's rocket to stardom and subsequent devastating plunge. Hickenlooper has the actress - Sienna Miller is at times beguiling and at times tragic and she never loses the camera's attention - but that's about all he has right. The movie ends up feeling superficial and mechanical. Warhol is a cut-and-dried villain rather than a complex individual. Edie is shortchanged by a screenplay that fast-forwards from one event to the next. The movie has only a 90 minute running time but the lack of dramatic tension makes it a long hour and a half. The historical Edie Sedgwick was a fascinating figure and at no time was she more interesting than when she was a member of Warhol's Factory. It's too bad Factory Girl fails to make this woman compelling in these circumstances.

© 2007 James Berardinelli

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