"I went to a party once, and there was a palm reader there and when she looked at my hand, she just froze. And I said to her "I know. My lifeline is broken. I know I won't live past thirty." - Edie Sedgwick, Factory Girl (2006)
Factory Girl is based on the true story that chronicles around the rise and demise of Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce)'s 1965 muse, Edie Sedgwick, brilliantly played by the ever-talented Sienna Miller. Upon meeting Warhol in the Big Apple, the trust fund baby that is Sedgwick was transformed into the biggest It Girl of her time. However, caught in the whirlwind of the Factory (Warhol's eccentric artist workspace) and her heroine addiction, Edie quickly falls to her demise and made way for the next Warhol muse, leaving behind her first love, Billy Quinn (Hayden Christensen) and her stardom.
What I loved most about this movie was the brilliant cast. From Miller's perfect depiction of the tortured yet effervescent Edie to Pearce's eerily cold and awkward characterization of Warhol. I have never been a huge fan of Christensen, but I must say that this was evidently one of his best works. The entire make-up and costume coordination of the movie was both perfection and timeless - we can still see Edie's mod 60s style significantly infused in modern culture.
Despite being a party film, the emotionally-detached rave culture of the movie was nicely balanced out by the emotional snippets of Sedgwick and Quinn's relationship. It was almost heartwrenching to watch Edie refuse help when help was so close to her. However, this movie painted a different picture of Warhol to me, both as an artist and as a person. As the movie accounts how much he takes away from his muse, it has raised some critically ethical questions about his artworks and methods - each and every one of his masterpiece seems to be a glamorous facade of the dark and twisted lives of his muses, and perhaps the greatest muses of art history in its entirety.
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