Cynical Cinema

Until now, I have never seen Sienna Miller in anything except the tabloids. You remember, she was somehow involved with Jude Law in some way, some stuff happened…I can’t remember the rest of it. It turns out she is a fairly good actress, I think. Her talent, if she does indeed have some, is totally wasted in the movie Factory Girl, which is currently playing on Rogers On Demand. It’s free to rent, but not worth it. This movie is boring, stupid and a real chore to sit through. Sienna Miller plays Edie Sedgewick, the original “it girl” in the movies made by Andy Warhol in the 60s, who was rumoured to have had a relationship with Bob Dylan, and who ended up a wasted wreck of a human being. An interesting story, to be sure, if it wasn’t shot like some kind of after-school special.

And there are other actors involved, some of whom are decent and some who are very good. Hayden Christensen is decent, and Guy Pearce is very good, but they are terribly boring in Factory Girl. Christensen plays Bob Dylan as some kind of wax figure who speaks. Guy Pearce plays Andy Warhol as a predatory, evil manipulator. Both portrayals may be accurate in real life at the time, but I have read an awful lot about Warhol, and I suspect there was more to Warhol than just aloofness and callousness. He was likely at the very least two-dimensional. And Dylan was certainly more two-dimensional than Pearce’s portrayal in the film. There isn’t a single character in the movie I liked. I think we’re supposed to like Sedgewick herself, but it becomes impossible because she is such a boring character. From the beginning of the movie to the end, she is such a victim, of Warhol’s exploitation, of Dylan’s coldness, of drug addiction and of a horrible father. At no point does she ever take responsibility for any of her own actions.

So, the movie would have us believe that this young girl showed up in Warhol’s studios, charming and pretty and ambitious. Then she was twisted, tortured, and manipulated into taking drugs, having sex with multiple partners, appearing in demeaning movies and wasting her life. No one cared enough about her to hold her hand and get her out. At no point does she ever try to get out of the lifestyle by herself, she is just forced out when people are tired of her, and then she blames them for turning into this wasted shell of a person. If she was able to take some responsibility for her own actions, she would be a much more sympathetic character. If she ever even questioned what was happening to her, she would be much more sympathetic. But she accepts everything as it comes along, initiates most of it, and then explodes. When she turns her anger toward those who “used” her, it comes off as very strange, since she is now an absolute junkie, completely out of it and lost in the world. Yet somehow now, completely drug-addled, she is able to finally see how these people turned her into that junkie? It doesn’t add up.

The Edie Sedgewick story is an interesting one, as are the Andy Warhol story and the Bob Dylan story. But there are better, and far more accurate ways to learn about that scene. There are a couple of books I own on Warhol - Who Is Andy Warhol? is a collection of articles and stories written about him and his art, and is really better for art students and the like. Holy Terror is a better look at the Factory scene, a book by Bob Colacello, who was the editor of Interview Magazine and who followed Warhol closely for a long time. While the picture he paints of Warhol is not always a rosy one, it certainly characterizes him and Sedgewick as far more complex and real than they are in this movie. For good Bob Dylan stuff, check out No Direction Home, the Scorcese documentary, or Chronicles, written by Dylan himself. For Edie Sedgewick, I don’t really know where to look. But it certainly isn’t Factory Girl. For fans of Sienna Miller’s breasts, however, this movie is well worth your while. Please don’t watch it just for Sienna Miller’s breasts.