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The year is 1965, and Edie Sedgwick is living every young girl's dream. Edie's life changes forever when she meets Andy Warhol, New York's most famous artist, and the man who will transform this trust fund baby into the Big Apple's most dazzling Superstar. At the center of this exciting and decadent new world is The Factory, Warhol's downtown loft, a place where musicians, artists, actors and all types of misfits gather to create art and movies during the day, and to throw fabulous parties at night. It is here that Edie takes her place at Andy's side as the Factory's most alluring and irresistible Superstar. Edie has the world at her feet. Every woman wants to be her. Every man wants to be with her. But unable to find the love she craves from Andy and The Factory, Edie turns to the "voice of a generation" singer-songwriter Danny Quinn, a captivating and talented musician who represents everything that Andy is not - where Andy is all cool surfaces, Danny burns with the fire of his convictions. Danny pushes Edie to free herself from Andy, who has been using her in his movies but never paying her. Edie quickly falls for Danny, but every affair has its price.
Edie Sedgwick is a poor little rich girl with an obnoxious family and a vulnerable frailty that endeared her to the world. When she meets Andy Warhol in the 60s at one of his exhibitions, she is drawn to him, just as he is to her. They become playmates, sharing intimacies and she begins to hang out in his 'factory', where he shoots his movies (often called pornographic). At times fascinating, at others tedious, Factory Girl canvases the tragic life of New York's IT girl, the first to become famous for not doing much. Sienna Miller is compelling and effervescent in the title role, offering a nice mix of rebellion and victimisation, while Guy Pearce's pale-faced, detached Warhol leaves an impressive imprint of an unforgettable icon.
Andy is 'a little boy who needed taking care of,' Sedgwick says. As Sedgwick becomes part of Warhol's factory scene, the film canvases the good times, the bad and her love affair with Hayden Christensen's rock-star Billy Quinn, of which Warhol is obsessively jealous. Quinn is everything Warhol is not; he is her first and only true love. Warhol, meanwhile, becomes a bloodsucker, and Sedgwick becomes broke and dependent on drugs. Speed is the rocket fuel to keep her up; heroin is the means to come down. Life is a perpetual party and Sedgwick is happy to lose herself in it.
As a bio-pic, Factory Girl is limited, but as a snapshot of Sedgwick and Warhol's fiery relationship, there is much to fascinate us. The superficial is countered with the profound, explained when Sedgwick says why she cannot look at a happy family photo without wondering what sadness lies beneath the façade.
DVD special features include red carpet footage (with interviews), a behind the scenes documentary, an insight into Edie Sedgwick's life and Guy Pearce's video diary.
