Factory Girl (2006)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

George Hickenlooper

Writers:

Captain Mauzner (screenplay)
Simon Monjack (story) ...

Release Date:

2 February 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Tagline:

When Andy met Edie, life imitated art.

Plot:

Based on the rise and fall of socialite Edie Sedgwick, concentrating on her relationships with Andy Warhol and a folk singer.

Plot Keywords:

Warhol | Artist | Folk Singer | Rise And Fall | Socialite

Cast

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

MPAA:

Rated R for pervasive drug use, strong sexual content, nudity and language.

Runtime:

USA:99 min (unrated version) | USA:90 min | Argentina:99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Slovak | French

Color:

Color | Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Ireland:16 | UK:15 | USA:Unrated (DVD) | Portugal:M/16 | South Korea:18 | Singapore:M18 | Italy:VM14 | Finland:K-15 | New Zealand:R16 | Japan:R-15 | USA:R (certificate #43218) | Netherlands:16 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Bossier City, Louisiana, USA

Company:

Weinstein Company, The

Trivia:

"Dost", the only Czech word Warhol speaks in the movie, means "stop".

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Edie's opening lines state that her "great-great-great-great uncle was a signer of the Declaration of Independence...". It was in fact her great-great-great uncle, William Ellery who was the signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Quotes:

Billy Quinn: I sing about what I see.

Movie Connections:

References Poor Little Rich Girl (1965)

Soundtrack:

Psychotic Reaction

one dimensional all the way through

I 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.