Factory Girl
Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) is a young heiress studying art in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She moves to New York City, where she is introduced to Pop Art painter and film-maker Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce). Intrigued by the beautiful socialite, he asks her to perform in one of his underground movies. Soon she is spending time with him at the Factory, his studio and also the hangout of a group of eccentrics, some of them addicts. Her status as Warhol Superstar and success as a fashion model gain her popularity and international attention.
Amid the excitement, terrible things in her past come to light - abuse from her father, who committed adultery in their home and tried to seduce her repeatedly since her childhood, treatment in a mental hospital when she was a teenager, and the recent suicide of a brother, after their father harshly rejected him for coming out as gay. Extravagant and frivolous, she spends money recklessly on clothes and dinner parties at posh restaurants. Through the family’s financial advisor, she is warned of bankruptcy and her parents’ decision to cut her off unless she leaves the Warhol group. As her money runs out, the effects of her drug abuse become obvious.
Her Cambridge friend Sid introduces her to poet and singer Billy Quinn (Hayden Christensen). The makers of Factory Girl created this character so as to resemble Bob Dylan. Edie sees that Andy is irritated when she tells him about Billy. She tries but fails to keep her love affair with Billy a secret. To reconcile them, she arranges a meeting. Although he agrees to be filmed by Andy, when Billy visits the studio he shows his contempt. As he is leaving, she tries once more to make peace, but Billy calls Andy a “bloodsucker” who will “kill” her. Seeing that she will stay, he kisses her forehead, says, “Take care of yourself, baby,” and walks away.
As addiction takes its toll, Edie’s relationship with Andy deteriorates. Confused, she is unaware of the danger while smoking in bed and starts a fire, surviving with burns. Modeling agencies refuse to hire her, and the explanation given is that she is considered "vulgar." Interrupting a luncheon of Andy and his friends, she demands to be paid and accuses him of ruining her, shouting obscenities. Quiet and sarcastic, he says, “I gave you fifty dollars. Did you spend it already?” He uses this opportunity to tell her that Billy has been secretly married.
When Sid sees her again, she has become a prostitute. In a taxi, he shows Edie, who is very depressed, a photo of herself when they were art students and asks, “Do you remember that girl?” He says that he fell in love with her then, and tells her that she can still be an artist. She says that she cannot bear her loneliness but interrupts him, asking the driver, “Can we go?” When the driver says that they are stuck in a traffic jam, she leaves the cab and runs frantically down the street. The scene changes to a hospital, years in the future. She tells an interviewer that she is overcoming her addiction and is glad to be home in Santa Barbara. Captions give facts about her last few years, her struggle to control drug abuse and her marriage to another patient, which ended in less than four months when she died of an overdose.
