Don't waste your time...
Added 10/23/2009
Sienna Miller's portrayal of 60's icon Edie Sedgwick is an embarrassment. She portrays Edie as an empty-headed twit and her affected accent is ridiculous and cloying. While Edie Sedgwick without a doubt had deep emotional problems, she was also incredibly intelligent, well-educated and articulate. To portray her as a naive dip who does nothing but search for love is over-simplication at it's worst. The real Edie was much more complex than that. The film is highly-fictionalized as well, which only adds to it's annoyance factor. Reveiwers who praise the film and/or Miller's performance have no concept of Sedgwick, Warhol or The Factory. This film is a complete and utter waste of time. Additionally, the "real" Edie documentary (also included on this DVD) is nothing but an extended version of the end credits of the film.
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Poor little rich "movie"
Added 9/28/2009
This film is unfortunate. There is a lot of real talent here, an intriguing story about highly interesting people, and yet it cannot deliver. I think Sienna Miller does a tremendous job as Edie. She is talented and has a striking resemblance. Guy Pearce is no slouch, but his lack of screen time made it difficult to truly understand him, as well as the relationship between Warhol and Edie. Hayden Christensen was kind of a disaster. You knew he was Bob Dylan without being told, but the accent and the mumbling were so contrived...it was the one true flaw of this film. The rest of the cast is a capable talent. And frankly, Jimmy Fallen was just a little too convincing as the parasite of Edie and Warhol.
Yes, the movie was fast paced, but it matched the subject. And you do need knowledge of the time and this "scene," but you can get along without it. The plot was disjointed and seemed to transcend any real timeline, but maybe this was supposed to be a vapid, strikingly superficial look at this story, a mirror of the story itself. Or it could just be a poorly written script and an effort to cram in certain scenes without care for the continuity.
It is a sad film about a sad woman. What this film misses most is complexity, of character and story. If nothing else, it will make you interested in finding out the whole story, which is always a good thing. I recommend watching it, especially if this time, or these people interest you.
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Not directed by Oliver Stone; so what? Warhol is great.
Added 9/11/2009
I think the problem with a lot of people coming to this film for the first time is - it's not fanatical. It's not going to give you a slimy, desperate Andy Warhol like Oliver Stone's. It's gonna give you a realistic impression of who Andy was, and I like it!
Let's face it, in many ways the early 60's were boring. Things weren't happening fast enough, and many young people felt isolated. They were waffling around for something to do, struggling to get more psychologically honest, and Warhol was in his 30's, wanting to create a "happening".
Warhol saw that potential in Edie Sedgwick, only to become acutely aware - she was damaged goods. Guy Pearce as Warhol here gives a stunning portrayal. Sienna Miller is left floating with very little dialog, but makes it work. Maybe that's how the real Edie was - just a young fledging with not a lot of substance, but money... Money that enabled her to do a few things (in spite of the suicides of her brothers and the incest from her father). These are rough topics which have to be handled with subtlety in film.
I thought this story was great! It showed a self-destructive girl reaching out to a man (Andy Warhol) who had an innate understanding of the differences between preservation and destruction. Let's not forget, he was also young. He was probably struggling with how to help her handle her neediness... Such is the case for victims of sexual abuse. He knew, any money given to her would be used for drugs. So, he didn't do it. I like the scenes here where Warhol goes to confession and tries to work out his confusion with the priest.
Warhol was in a bind with this girl... In the same way a landlord would be legally accountable for taking money from drug sales as a rent payment. I don't think he was cruel, I think he was smart. There are hundreds of Edie's on our international streets every day. This one just happened to meet someone who gave her attention without being possessive or controlling. Warhol and Sedgwick were star-crossed; she was able to articulate some things he already knew in his own heart, but repressed. The love was there, but it had no real chance. She needed rescue, and Andy was not an enabler.
I think this film could have really become a 5-star piece had a dynamic actor been chosen to play the role of Bob Dylan; but the chemistry just was not there. I also do not perceive Andy's mother as being a dried-up old hag, so much as a funny kitchen-witch of a character in life. Watch it if you want some better insights into Warhol - Guy Pearce was the super one.
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Awful - awful piece about nutcase (and I mean nutcase) rich girl hanging out with the king of whack - jobs- Andy Warhol. It has NO plot. Just meanders along haphazardly from one vulgar scene to another. P.U. 20 minutes and it went back in the Netflix envelope and returned. Yaawwwnnn.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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An early attempt
Added 6/3/2009
Factory Girl was called by the Village Voice "Edie for Dummies." While not the first fictional attempt to show the Factory days of Warhol (see such films as The Doors and Basquiat), it presents what will become a standard historical (hysterical?) take on what happened there. Sienna Miller is okay as Edie, though where's the scar the real Edie had between her eyebrows? It showed that she was physically as well as psychologically damaged. I am also taken back by the way Dylan was treated, or should I say "Musician"? Edie's brother claims that Edie aborted Dylan's baby, but there's no evidence that's true. Her affair was with Bob Neuwirth. And when Edie did Ciao Manhattan, the rambling, horrifying audio tapes she made about her life mention no abortion. She did have an abortion when she was 20, long before any of this. Altogether, Factory Girl doesn't really tell us very much, but it does give us a picture of that life.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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