Factory Girl - The Movie

Was she really acting? Sienna Miller? In the film ‘Factory girl’?

A part of me wonders whether the English press (who are currently being very unfair to Miss Miller), are scuppering her chances of success too early on after the film’s release. I also wonder whether, if the press are to be believed, Sienna Miller is an out-and-out party girl who doesn’t actually do much work, is a bit naïve, and a bit famous? If so, her portrayal of Eddie Sedgwick seems a little too easy a part a play.

If she is different, a reputable actor who just happens to be funky and famous (as I expect), she plays this role, of an emotionally vulnerable fame hungry minor celebrity, exceedingly well. I don’t think she the most stunning actress to look at, although a host of people I know would heartedly disagree. I think she is unconventionally attractive, but nothing extraordinary and nothing to merit the pages and pages that fashion magazines seem to dedicate to her.

A part of me does imagine her life to be a somewhat watered down version of the part she was playing.

Without giving too much of the story away, this is a film that delves head first into the relationship between Eddie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol and (in part) Bob Dylon. How they find each other, are inspired by each other, choose between each other and ultimately betray each other. That the central point of this film is very much about Eddie’s slow crumble into the depths of drug addiction makes for interesting viewing.

And to be fair, and oppose those people who thought Andy Warhol was portrayed as a cold manipulator, I think he was played fantastically by Guy Pearce. I came away thinking he was a man so messed up yet so still, and thus very stagnant throughout the entire movie. The homosexual man builds a great friendship, only for the friend to be a female. Her sexual void is filled by another, hugely successful man, who he becomes jealous of. The control shown by Guy Pearce, in what was a very complex character, should earn him his fair share of roses.

The film was shot very well. The insular world of art, Warhol’s infamous factory, the funk-art movement and the almost carefree poise that so many artists possess was shown to perfection. And, not forgetting, the claustrophobia of it all.

I’d recommend this one to those of you who are interested in art. Who, given half the chance, would run up the social ladder and become the next IT girl or boy. For those of you who like a slice of funky reality. Creativity and ambition come at a price, let us not forget.