Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The sad tale of the downfall of poor little rich girl Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller), who was the muse of AndyWarhol (Guy Pearce). It’s directed by George Hickenlooper (“The Killing Box”/”Casino Jack”), who never gets past the superficial in this fact-based fictionalized docudrama. The film is adapted from a story by Captain Mauzner, Simon Monjack, and Aaron Richard Golub. In 1964 the beautiful Edie leaves her wealthy Santa Barbara, California, home to study art in the east, at Cambridge Art School. In 1965 she moves to NYC, where she meets the pop culture artist Andy Warhol and becomes part of his entourage at his infamous studio known as the Factory. She goes completely bohemian and appears in his underground movies, achieving her 15 minutes of fame. Meanwhile she uses up her trust fund to support the bloodsucking Andy. She gets her platonic lover jealous when she has a fling with the glib rock singer (Hayden Christensen), who acts like a dick to her and to those at the Factory. The rocker is supposedly Bob Dylan, who in real life was briefly involved with her and his song Just like a Woman was inspired by her. When the sweet Edie got heavily into drugs her spiral was straight downward. She never made it out of her twenties–as she overdosed in 1971 at age 28 while back home in Santa Barbara. The film, though only surface deep, adequately covers the zany Warhol hipster scene and the vulnerable socialite’s tale of woe, of how she was led down a dark and intractable path. It also lets us see what a shit Andy could be. But the pic, even if well-acted, only gives us a limited snapshot look at the mixed-up Edie and the self-absorbed mama’s boy Andy.
REVIEWED ON 5/1/2017 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”
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