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84 comments in total

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81 out of 107 people found the following comment useful :-
one dimensional all the way through, 5 February 2007

Author: maryamishani from United States

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.

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134 out of 246 people found the following comment useful :-
A terrible after-school special version of Edie's story, 18 December 2006

Author: Jayson Elliot from Manhattan, NY

The 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.

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26 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
Factory Girl Mass Produced, 6 March 2007

Author: visitourwebsite from Canada

"The Factory" was the entire fifth floor studio of 231 East 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan serving as artistic sanctuary for Andy Warhol and the place for artsy types in the mid to late 60's. It's also where Edie Sedgwick spent most of her time as Warhol turned her into a starlet on his silver screen and as the original Paris Hilton she became famous for being famous, complete with trust fund and a nasty drug habit courtesy of Andy and his "Warhol Superstars".

Andy Warhol dove into most things artistic; shaping Pop Art, producing The Velvet Underground, and making his own films. Factory Girl took great advantage of the justification for using all manner of film-making formats cutting to point-of-view shots through grainy black and white 8 MM film camera viewfinders. Ask your grandparents... or SAIT instructor Philip Letourneau.

The cameras take you through a real life tragedy as Sienna Miller portrays a charming and naive Edie Sedgwick. Conflicted, she's seduced into fame by a chilling Guy Pearce as Warhol while a painfully dull Hayden Christensen as "The Musician" attempts to rescue her. Denying a relationship with Sedgwick, Bob Dylan's lawyers refused his inclusion in the film but he represents the possible redemption for the spiraling "Poor Little Rich Girl".

Overall, Factory Girl has trouble navigating it's plot shifting to and from Edie as the art that Andy creates, her personal journey, and the people around them both, all topped by a future Miss Sedgwick revealing the story to a psychiatrist in rehab.

There's a great movie in here somewhere but Factory Girl is not it.

C Matt Watterworth http://www.theweal.com

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79 out of 142 people found the following comment useful :-
Utterly incompetent use of film and actors, 6 February 2007

Author: Steve from new york city

The filmmakers have done the impossible: taken the story of Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's muse and the object of underground fascination for Forty YEARS and produced a movie so banal, predictable, and downright boring that the they must be applauded for even releasing it. I would be interested to hear if the screenwriters even read the bible for Edie -- George Plimpton's "Edie" -- that's how spectacularly misguided "Factory Girl" is. This movie makes "Swept Away" look like "The Godfather." Sienna Miller gamely resurrects the type of sex scene that thankfully died in 1975, but I guess these incompetetents must have thought it gave the movie a teeny bit of energy. I was embarrassed for everyone. Guy Pearce does a marvelous Warhol impersonation (not quite as good as David Bowie's in "Basquiat"), but wonderfully fascinating. Unfortunately, the numerous re-shoots the producers demanded reduce Andy Warhol -- ANDY WARHOL -- into an almost uninteresting opportunist. Edie of course lands in rehab and, well, I won't give away the ending, but the New York audience I saw it with roared with laughter and grumbled about the time they had wasted sitting in the theater. My lowest rating, period.

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16 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Atrocious, 20 March 2007

Author: lindaannemcevoy from Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It is utterly incomprehensible how this managed to make it to the big screen. The script fails to provide the background of any of the characters or the politics of the time in which they functioned, rendering the story superfluous. Guy Pearce is too "male" in every sense of the word to effectively portray the androgyny of Warhol. Hayden Christensen - a wonderful actor when he gets the chance - performs off the page as if he's still in front of the Star Wars green screen.

Miller - so promising in "Alfie" - is abysmal. Her performance betrays a stark lack of acting experience. Granted, the script and direction give her nothing to work with, but her countenance displays no knowledge whatsoever of the historical time frame in which Edie lived or what made her tick. Granted these are matters on which an actor should have their own personal "take". But Miller doesn't even bother doing that. She looks happy in herself just to be walking across the screen and she strives for nothing else. It's no surprise at all that she lost out to the lesser known Lena Headey for the lead female role in "300".

The screen lights up towards the end for 60 seconds, when Meredith Ostrom appears as Nico. Unfortunately she disappears just as quickly again.

The final cut is an atrocious insult to Sedgwick, Warhol, Dylan, the Velvet Underground and the audience itself.

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71 out of 128 people found the following comment useful :-
A film that accentuates the beauty and ugliness in human art, 22 December 2006

Author: partee-boyee from Canada

this film makes art out of artists. it is a beautiful, artful depiction of three people: andy warhol, edie, and bob Dylan (billy quinn).

many will say that it is not the accurate, hard fact bio pic that many people rely on such to be; but like the doors, it paints artful depictions of such iconic legends.

all performances are done well. andy warhol is portrayed beautifully and harshly by guy pierce. sienna miller does a wonderful job as a beautiful girl valued only for her beauty and quirks. billy quinn... or bob Dylan... is portrayed just like the arrogant youth he was at times... bob Dylan was never always this sage who had best intentions in mind. he was human. and too many people forget that when hayden christensen plays him, he's portraying the real person.

beautifully crafted.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Evocative But Frustratingly Elliptical Look at Andy Warhol's Factory and the Sad Party Girl in the Middle, 6 September 2007

Author: Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA

For the concerted effort Sienna Miller puts into her searing portrayal of Warhol protégé and underground celebrity Edie Sedgwick, it would have been rewarding to experience a film that matches her unbridled dramatic impact. Unfortunately, director George Hickenlooper, primarily a documentary filmmaker, seems more focused on eye-catching cinematic techniques - a deliberately artsy mix of overtly dramatic images, grainy film stock and slow-motion photography - than honest character development in this highly fictionalized 2007 account of her brief life. The result feels energetic but ultimately rather cursory in the way he depicts the Manhattan party scene in the mid-1960's, in particular, the Factory, where Warhol let his coterie of drug-addicted fame-seekers gather to make virtually unwatchable films that reflect their constant state of ennui.

With her big raccoon eyes, pre-punk hairdo and flashing smile, Miller bears such a striking resemblance to the real-life Sedgwick that she carries much of the film by the sheer will of her character's Holly Golightly-like sense of exalted self-worth. But like Holly, Sedgwick lacked talent to sustain a film career, and the script leaves Miller to her own devices in connecting us with her character's tormented psyche amid her escalating drug use. On the upside, Guy Pearce accurately captures the discomfiting public image of Warhol down to the familiar narcissistic indifference and manipulative shyness, but his character gradually recedes into the background. At first, Hayden Christensen comes across as amateurish and unintentionally amusing as a Bob Dylan doppelganger, especially since he makes a feeble attempt at capturing the singer's recognizable speech cadences. Just as he manages to transcend the awkwardness of the character's intrusion into the story, he also disappears making his impact in Sedgwick's life feel rather fleeting.

Even though the cryptic screenplay by Captain Mauzner, Aaron Richard Golub and Simon Monjack conveniently paints Warhol and the faux-Dylan as polarizing figures pulling at Sedgwick's soul, the story really comes down to her own inner demons. The problem is that she remains oddly elliptical throughout, and Hickenlooper seems satisfied with leaving us with an impressionistic view of a person who barely warrants our attention forty years later. Among the supporting players, there are quite a familiar faces - Ileana Douglas as Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, Jimmy Fallon as Sedgwick's confidante Chuck Wein, Tara Summers as fellow Warhol protégé Brigid Berlin, Mena Suvari as Brigid's sister Richie, Edward Herrmann as the family attorney, Mary Kate Olsen as a partygoer. However, none of them are given any opportunity to shine.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Edie Through The Looking Glass, 7 August 2007

Author: I-Sense-A-Plot from United States

(Possible spoilers, though unlikely)

Okay, let me say that I enjoyed Factory Girl for what it is and think it is worth renting.

The story stars Sienna Miller as the fated Edie Sedgwick and Guy Pearace as vapid pop culture icon, Andy Warhol.

The movie isn't nearly as close to as bad as critics claim it is. The first 40 minutes is much ado about talk of cocks, Andy and Edie's irreverence, and a series of disjointed images. The first act is aimless. But it makes sense because Edie and Andy are aimless and so are the termites chewing Andy's wood at "The Factory".

Enter Hayden Christensen as Billy Quinn and the movie develops its paper thin plot. Though, I should say it's unfair to characterize the story this way. Edie's life was a paper thin plot, so the director, Hickenlooper can't be blamed for that.

Andy, who never says he is gay, though everyone else assumes (or knows) he is, is in love with the idea of Edie "The Superstar" and Billy Quinn simply wants to open her eyes. She becomes the rope in a tug of war. Billy's "soul" cries for the world in a time of upheaval versus the-devil-may-care, drug den world of Andy. And while the latter may be in "love" with his muse, Billy cares and wants Edie to know, if art is the food of the soul, then Edie is eating from an empty soup can.

Edie is a sympathetic character. You get the sense that no one really knew her. Not because she was empty and vapid but that she was so shattered inside the only part of herself she allowed the world to see was the facade her Andy created. In Factory Girl we see Edie through the looking glass. Not as she was, but as she appeared. Warped.

Edie is the cute girl you meet in passing at a party at some stranger's house. You like her, but never see her again. Though, over the years you hear the occasional rumor or two, until one day, you hear she's hit rock bottom and died. That's how it feels to watch Edie Sedgewick's story in The Factory Girl. On one hand, you want to mourn her. On the other hand, you wonder, what has the world lost? That in itself is the real tragedy.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
An Interesting Mess, 1 September 2007

Author: turner_cinema (turner_cinema@yahoo.com) from United States

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.

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14 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
You're the Boss, Applesauce, 11 February 2007

Author: David Ferguson (fergusontx@gmail.com) from Dallas, Texas

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.

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