3:17pm Thursday 15th March 2007
By Telegraph newsdesk
With newspaper column inches concerning Sienna Miller thus far dominated by her relationship and break-up with Jude Law, the burning question now that Miller's single and making her debut as a leading lady is this: can she act?
Supporting roles as sex kittens in her three previous films - the British gangster thriller Layer Cake, the remake of Alfie (with Law) and the recent big-screen version of Casanova - offered few clues as to her nascent abilities.
Those, however, who caught Miller on stage in London in the much-praised Young Vic production of As You Like It (in which she was cast as Celia, but to great acclaim stepped into the lead part when co-star Helen McCrory fell ill) will have an inkling that this young American-born, British-bred actress has indeed got acting chops.
Not only is Miller's performance as the sixties It-girl and Andy Warhol muse, Edie Sedgwick, a star turn, it's also an utterly convincing and compelling piece of acting that imbues this stylish biopic with a real sense of pathos.
Sedgwick, for those unfamiliar with Warhol Factory scene lore, was a bright but disturbed child of a wealthy old-money family who escaped an abusive father and uncaring mother by moving to New York City in the mid-sixties, where the art, fashion and music cultures were undergoing a style revolution and establishing the metropolis as the hip place to be.
The newly liberated Sedgwick was seduced by the scene and wooed by Warhol, who was charmed by the smart, beautiful and charismatic blue-blood princess.
She immediately became Warhol's muse, the star of his films and a media darling, and allegedly had a love affair with Bob Dylan (who to this day denies the relationship).
And then Sedgwick's world fell apart. Shallow, fashion-conscious and trend-following Warhol and serious, self-important, politicised Dylan, egotists both, abandoned her, and Sedgwick, now ostracised by her family and cut off from their wealth, spiralled down into drug abuse and depression, and some years later committed suicide.
Those are the bare facts of Sedgwick's life, as dramatised in Factory Girl.
Director George Hickenlooper and screenwriter Captain Mauzner's unashamedly partisan take on Sedgwick's short, briefly blazing but ultimately tragic life is sympathetic to its subject and extremely critical of those around her.
Virtually every character in the film disappoints Sedgwick.
In addition to Warhol and Dylan, there is her parents' scant regard for their daughter's wellbeing.
Previously, she had been let down variously by her childhood sweetheart Chuck Wein, who exploited Edie's popularity with Warhol; high-school friend Syd Pepperman, who seemingly pimped his pal to rock stars; and model agent Diana Vreeland, who ceased to represent Sedgwick after she was given the cold-shoulder by Warhol and developed a serious heroin habit which was funded by making cheap porn films.
As a consequence of the film's partisan stance, the supporting characters are somewhat partial in characterisation.
Warhol, for example, is an almost totally unsympathetic dweeb (although in fairness there's some effort made to establish that his fascination with Sedgwick's family was related to him growing up in grinding poverty).
Nevertheless, Guy Pearce does a fine job in the role, with a spot-on impersonation of the nervous, anaemic-looking artist.
Former Darth Vader Hayden Christensen is less impressive as Dylan.
Billed in the film (for legal reasons) simply as the Musician, Christensen's character comes off more as a caricature of a generic rock star than a rounded character.
In one of the film's only laughable scenes he drives his new motorbike off a pier and into a lake just to prove to Sedgwick that he's a travelling troubadour who doesn't need "things" in his life.
But these are minor quibbles about what is otherwise an engrossing film. Hickenlooper, whose previous film was the excellent documentary about Los Angeles pop impresario Rodney Bingenheimer, Mayor of Sunset Strip, has done a great job of evoking the cool style and party mood of happening mid-sixties New York City.
And Mauzner, who previously penned the intriguing John Holmes porn-star biopic-cum-true life murder mystery Wonderland, has a real feel for his subject, who he celebrates for being a shining star and commiserates with for burning out so quickly.
With the focus of Factory Girl so squarely upon Sedgwick, a weak central performance would have been disastrous.
Happily, Miller's studied, nuanced and affecting one carries the film, which provides some real insight into the remarkable short-lived life of one of the original media celebrities.
And the all-too evident comparisons with today's celebrities and the public's obsession with them (Anna Nicole Smith comes to mind) gives Factory Girl a good deal of contemporary resonance.
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