Factory Girl (review)
Celebrity Interrupted
If you’re like most people, you’ve been asking yourself for several years now, “Just who the hell is Sienna Miller, why is she famous, and why must I endure the latest gossip about her?” Here she is attending a premiere! Look, she just launched her new fashion line! Listen, she and Jude Law just broke up-- no, wait, they’re together again. Ostensibly, she’s an actress -- this is what the publicity machine has been insisting, anyway -- and Factory Girl was supposed to be her big proving ground, the film that would justify her hitherto inexplicable celebrity.
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We can hope, then, that this means we’ve heard the end of the nonsense about this nonentity, because this is a flimsy ghost of a movie made even more inconsequential by the relentless blandness and unqualified insubstantiality of its “star.” Marketing may have gotten Miller (Casanova, Alfie) this far, but even if the manufacturing of a celebrity results in the momentary theft of the spotlight, eventually the moment comes when its continued glare must be earned, and Miller is unable to do that. She’s not an incompetent performer, but she does not light up the screen like you’d expect from someone of her bizarrely unwarranted reputation. Instead, she barely registers -- she’s lightweight in an elemental way. Her utter lack of screen presence is the most monumental thing about her.
Miller is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what Factory Girl needed. It’d be ironic if this were the beginning of the end of Miller’s 15 minutes, because here we have the tale, if the dull and uninspiring one, of Edie Sedgwick, who was muse to Andy Warhol and the gal who held court at the center of his downtown New York art clique for a few brief years in the late 1960s. All indication of what Warhol found so rousing about Sedgwick is missing from what is, alas, a pedestrian biopic about a poor little rich girl who descended, we’re told, from rarefied heights of privilege to land in New York as an art student with stars in her naive eyes and ended up a junkie at the hands of Warhol’s mean and despicable cabal. Sedgwick’s dreams of life as an artist were laid low either by drugs and, ahem, inexplicable fame as the gal on Andy’s arm, or by her own sense of entitlement, which prevented her from doing a lick of work of her own. Either way, it’s a less than sympathetic portrait, and yet never the intriguing and ironic drama that an unflattering portrait can be, either. Director George Hickenlooper doesn’t seem to know how he feels about Sedgwick, asking us simultaneously to excuse Sedgwick as the party responsible for her own downfall while also shoveling modern psychobabble about personal responsibility onto her: the film bookends itself with Edie-in-rehab pabulum that transforms the story into one long and tedious therapy session.
The film may be a total loss for Miller, but the rest of the cast fares much better. Guy Pearce (The Proposition) scares me, he’s so intense, and here, as Andy Warhol, he’s riveting in his offhand disdain for the mundane, for the celebrity he paradoxically courts, for his own art. Hayden Christensen (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) shines in a very small and -- alas for the potential drama squandered here -- undeveloped part as Bob Dylan, who, we’re led to believe, could have saved Edie from herself, if only she’d let him. Illeana Douglas (Ghost World) steals a few juicy moments as fashion designer Diana Vreeland.
But just as none of them can save Sedgwick from herself, so can none of them save Miller from her moment of truth: There’s an ineffable, essential It of charisma and spirit that comes with being an It Girl, and she hasn’t got it.
(Technorati tags: Factory Girl, Sienna Miller, Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol)
viewed at a public multiplex screeningrated R for pervasive drug use, strong sexual content, nudity and language
official site | IMDB
comments
posted by yana (February 21, 2007 1:25 PM)
I completely disagree with you. Miller has something absolutely unique that I haven't seen in a great deal of actresses thus far. This review seems utterly one sided and biased against the girl, thanks to the public scrutiny already set upon her.
posted by MaryAnn (February 21, 2007 3:05 PM)
Yup, that's it completely: I've got something personal against Miller that is clouding my judgment. You've got it in one. Brilliant.
I must ask, though: How could a critic write a review that was not "one-sided"? Wouldn't I have to be a multiple personality or something to do that?
posted by Tanner (February 21, 2007 3:48 PM)
I'm just curious... what do you have against Ms. Miller... ?
So many of us that have seen the film and are blown away by her presence and can't keep our eyes off her...
so, what's the deal? what did she ever do to you?
Whatever it is, I hope your readers will also get your negative slant on her is more about your personal issue than it is about her ability to act.... and act really well!!!
posted by A. Guy (February 21, 2007 4:33 PM)
MaryAnn you clearly aren't a lesbian because part of Sienna's charm is that she is just so savagely attractive. And it’s not a vapid, runway model kind of beauty. There’s a lively glint in her eye.
It may take a guy to completely "get" Sienna Miller.
posted by Imani (February 21, 2007 5:46 PM)
Are you guys serious? Here, in perfectly good English, Johanson has explained why Miller's acting in the film does not impress her, and yet you still wander in, eyes open in aggrieved shock and wonder that she hasn't regurgitated your precious reaction.
For goodness' sake.
posted by MaryAnn (February 21, 2007 5:49 PM)
She stole my bologna sandwich when I was in third grade.
posted by Danielle (February 21, 2007 9:35 PM)
Yana, Tanner and A. Guy must be the same person, because I find it truly hard to believe that there are three people in this universe who feel that strongly about Sienna Miller's "talents" as an actress.
posted by Orodemniades (February 21, 2007 10:18 PM)
I do believe Sienna Miller's 'talents' are best revealed when she wears bra and underwear.
Unless, of course, she's in one of those women's mags you buy at the checkout counter, Hello! and all that nonsense. That's what she's known for besides Jude Law.
posted by Parma Violets (February 22, 2007 3:01 AM)
A. Guy, I'm also A Guy, and I don't get the Sienna Miller thing at all. Average looks, no real screen presence, not a particularly good actress, looks like she needs an adult to help her dress. I now eagerly await the sword of "OMG BIYASED SHES ECKSELENT!!!!1111" coming down on my head.
posted by A. Guy (February 22, 2007 1:53 PM)
There are legions of actresses that are very, very attractive but don’t have even modest doses of “it”: Julia Ormond, Natasha Henstridge, Claire Forlani... (help me here).
Ms. Miller has a very solid leg-up on that category. Is she the next Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock? No. That kind of wattage is rare. I think she has at least the presence of Natalie Portman.
And remember, in Factory Girl, Warhol “fell” for Edie/Sienna just from looking across the room at her. She’s got wattage to spare to pull that off, and few do.
posted by MaryAnn (February 22, 2007 2:12 PM)
Well, perhaps the director arranged things so that it would appear that Guy Pearce, as Warhol, saw Sienna Miller, as Sedgwick, across a room, and that this was meant to indicate that Warhol fell for Sedgwick, but I, for one, did not buy it. But all you're saying is that Pearce is a good enough actor to make you believe in him. Believing in Miller, and in WHY Warhol would fall for her, is something else entirely.
posted by A. Guy (February 22, 2007 3:02 PM)
Well, actually, what I'm saying has nothing to do with Pearce's reaction. I'm saying that when as a viewer I put myself in Warhol's shoes and saw her from across the room, I bought it. I bought that she had something special.
But to be honest, I probably bought it long before that scene. I may actually have bought it when I first saw the trailer for Layer Cake.
posted by MaiGirl (February 22, 2007 7:18 PM)
Okay, we get it, A.Guy. You have a boner for a talentless hack actress. You aren't the first, and nobody's mad at you. Simply understand that just because your penis is dazzled by her "wattage" doesn't mean we have to agree.
And as much as I liked Layer Cake, her role was all of 10 minutes long, and all she did was take of her clothes and flip her hair a lot. Wait...she may have been chewing gum at the same time. Where's her Oscar, people?
posted by A. Guy (February 22, 2007 7:57 PM)
Geez, MaiGirl. What’s with the hostility? I’m not attacking MaryAnn. I obviously like her reviews a lot or I wouldn’t be here.
It’s a movie blog; we’re talking about things that don’t really matter (i.e. movie stars) and that are completely subjective. Everything I wrote had a smile behind it.
You’re like a movie-fan version of a right-wing fundamentalist. Please forgive me treading on one of your passionately held beliefs.
posted by MaryAnn (February 22, 2007 11:15 PM)
Okay, cool it, guys. I disagree that movies "don't really matter," but we are talking about very subjective stuff like who gives us our jollies, so let's play nice.
posted by appollo (March 15, 2007 6:34 PM)
.. Factory Girl is a dreadful film; with two moments that lift it - two ! in 90 minutes; not bad; Sienna - sorry - but I've met her and she is a rich, posh, english tart and a most disinteresting talentless bitch. No I have no reason other than, I met her a few times and have thought 'whats the fuss...? this is a telnetless no mark.." BUT - the reason - she is being used to sell, and like Kate Moss ( but without the credibility and charisma) she can be used to sell... all about the filthy lucre and talent and art doesnt come into it.. o ye', her dads dead dead rich, so that always helps to get one to where one wants to get ... like, know what I mean?