Review of Factory Girl (2006) by Richard B — 18 Aug 2008

I hated Sienna Miller in Layer Cake. She pranced around in her underwear a lot of the time. She does the same in this too, there are quite a few scenes where Edie seems to live in her underwear, but there's almost a certain innocence to it somehow.

Sienna Miller is of course more well known for her personal life these days, than her film career, and people seem to forget that. This is actually the first film I've seen of hers since Layer Cake, and was surprised when she was actually really good. It shows a great actor when you forget who they really are, they manage to become that character. It would have been especially hard to become such a tortured character like Edie Sedgewick was.

The film is basically centred around Edie's short life. Interspersed with scenes of Edie being interviewed when she's in rehab I think? Those scenes were the only parts I didn't like, as it didn't seem to add anything to the movie.

Guy Pearce who plays Andy Warhol in this, was the weirdest character. He actually gave me the shivers watching him on screen. I don't really know anything about Andy Warhol (or Edie Sedgewick for that matter) and the apparent similarities between Hayden Christensen's character and Bob Dylan I didn't notice. Really, this was a blind impulse buy.

For anyone who wasn't from the era this movie was based in, like me, won't really know the music. It didn't really do anything for me, add to the movie or anything. The fashion was cool, but I've seen better. It didn't really scream sixties if you know what I mean?

Overall, Factory Girl was a good little movie, not too long, not too short, quite sad towards the end, and with a couple of interesting features. But I finished it feeling I hadn't really found out anything about Edie Sedgewick. It skimmed over the top of her life, and left me feeling a bit empty afterwards.