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1/03/2020

Factory Girl (2006) - Miller is great in Hickenlooper's wronged cultural reprimand



+ Shooting Star Actress of the Year: Sienna Miller


Imitating Andy Warhol's pop-art-style, this is an intriguing poster for George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl


Edie Sedgwick is an extraordinarily beautiful, wealthy young woman, who comes to New York in the mid-1960s and gains the interest of the city's leading artist Andy Warhol, whose 'Factory' she becomes a part of, and which ends up causing her early demise.

Factory Girl is written by Captain Mauzner (Wonderland (2003)), with story elements from Simon Monjack (Two Days, Nine Lives (2001)) and Aaron Richard Golub (Proud Iza, short (2008, executive producer)), and directed by George Hickenlooper (Grey Knight (1993)).
It is a tragic story of 'damaged goods' from out west, in the form of Sedgwick, who could not live with the great pressure of the big city jungle and who, moreover, was exploited by superficial, egocentric Factory 'artists'. The story is brought to vivid life with flashbacks to her sexual abuse-shaped childhood and an outstanding performance by Sienna Miller (American Sniper (2014)) in the title role. Guy Pearce (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010)) is also good as the coolly distanced Warhol, who was a real prick towards Sedgwick. Hayden Christensen (Free Fall (1999)) is snugly to look at as the obviously Bob Dylan-shaped character; who makes love to Sedgwick before a fireplace in the film's only clichéd scene.
Factory Girl also has good supporting performances from Mena Suvari (Apparition (2019)), Beth Grant (Natural Disasters (2008)) and more. It is a small, sad and fine film.

 

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Miller reminisces with fellow Factory Girl cast member Jimmy Fallon about the film many years later on his talkshow in a video here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 3.5 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.5 times its cost)
[Factory Girl premiered 29 December (USA) and runs 99 minutes. Katie Holmes was set to star as Sedgwick but got pregnant and dropped out. Shooting took place in Toronto, Ontario, in New York, Connecticut and Louisiana from December 2005 - February 2006. Lou Reed and Bob Dylan were incensed with the film. It opened #46 to an 87k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #23 and in 336 theaters and grossed 1.6 mil. $ (45.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 964k $ (27.5 %) and Italy with 225k $ (6.4 %). Hickenlooper uploaded a director's cut of the film on Youtube in the fall of 2008, which was taken down due to The Weinstein Company's ownership of the footage. Hickenlooper returned with 3 documentary projects before his last feature Casino Jack (2010), the last film he made before his premature death caused by a drug overdose at age 47 in 2010. Miller returned in Interview (2007); Pearce in Death Defying Acts (2007); and Christensen in Awake (2007). Factory Girl is rotten at 20 % with a 4.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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