Factory Girl

Greetings again from the darkness. Andy Warhol and The Factory poses quite the challenge to any filmmaker attempting to capture the look, feel and pain of that world unto itself. Director George Hickenlooper's best work has been "Mayor of Sunset Strip" and "Dogtown", neither of which drew much of an audience. "Factory Girl" probably has little hope of attracting much attention from movie-goers as well.

While we do spend a good portion of the film in The Factory, this is more the tragic story of Edie, rather than an insightful look at Warhol's art. Edie was really the first to make being famous a job ... think Paris Hilton today. No real talent herself, her name, family money and looks got her inside the art world and exceptionally close to Warhol. Of course, those things were not enough to carve out any real territory and the ending, while tragic, is not at all surprising.

The film is overly choppy in attempting to find the right look and feel and yet with Jagger, Velvet Underground and the Dylanesque Hayden Christensen, the importance and power of music for this era is clearly established. Aussie Guy Pearce does a nice impersonation of Warhol and Jimmy Fallon has his first serious role. Other support comes from Mena Suvari as Edie's friend, Beth Grant as Warhol's mom, Don Novello (Father Guido from early SNL), and Illeana Douglas as Diana Vreeland.

By far the best part of this project is the performance of Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick. Even her vocal cadence is remarkable. The physical and emotional turmoil seems very real as Edie goes from top of world to desperation for life. Ms. Miller will at some point break out and become the film star she is destined to become. That role has just not quite happened yet. It could be later this year when she re-teams with her "Layer Cake" director. Let's hope so. Her talent is undeniable and although it is a pleasure to see her performance as Edie, she deserves a much wider audience.

The weakness of the film is best shown by the interviews over the closing credits. Attempting to explain what we had just watched is a pure indication that the job had not been done well.