Not having seen the theatrical version of Factory Girl, I have no precise idea which 15 minutes of new material were added to the new DVD and what they add to the story. Judging from the anemic box-office, almost no one else saw George Hickenlooper’s biopic of Edie Sedgwick, either. Apparently, the version that was released for awards consideration in the last week of December was missing three whole scenes, due to a financial squabble between the original backers and the director. These scenes appear to have been newly shot and added to the “uncut” DVD and the version shown recently at Cannes. So, it’s practically a new Factory Girl.
If the media’s current mad obsession with celebrity could be traced to two persons and a place, they would be Andy Warhol (here played by Guy Pearce), his “superstar” muse, Sedgwick, and the Factory.
Until the ascension of the famously famous Paris Hilton, perhaps, no one manipulated the media as well as Warhol, and no one basked in the limelight as faux-glamorously as the blue-blooded socialite/model/actress/junkie. Sienna Miller does an excellent imitation of Sedgwick at her most vibrant and charismatic.
Ultimately, Warhol pushed an increasingly fragile Sedgwick out of his nest when she turned to Bob Dylan (here, Billy Quinn) for a different kind of love, and the folk singer would add insult to misery by hiding his commitment to another woman. Miller does what she can to humanize Sedgwick as she falls apart physically and emotionally, but one junkie’s demise is pretty much like all the others. It’s fun, but, again, nothing we haven’t seen before.
More than anything else, Factory Girl adeptly captures the rhythms of New York’s underground at the dawn of the age of the 15-minute celebrity.
The bonus features include revealing interviews, making-of material, commentary and studies of Miller and Pearce.
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Factory Girl: Uncut
***
Not Rated