DVD of the Week: Factory Girl

George Hickenlooper's hazy, dazed and fetchingly delirious Edie Sedgwick homage, Factory Girl, is arguably one of the most press hounded films of the decade. Everyone knows its many tabloid scandals (Did Tom Cruise really refuse to let Katie Holmes take the part of Edie? Was Bob Dylan accurate in his attacks of its credibility? Could Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen really have gotten closer than usual during those Canada reshoots?), but hardly anyone has actually seen the film. Here's hoping we can change that. Despite some imperfections, Factory Girl happens to be an exciting and sometimes wonderful film, addled in the same sort of sympathetic way that Sedgwick herself was in her public life. There are moments when you may cringe, but in the end the faults make it all the more likable for its campy, messy Warhol-esque quirk.

Sienna Miller stars as Sedgwick in a riveting performance that marked the dazzling breakout moment for the Brit actress earlier this year. She's a remarkable look-a-like for Edie with a canny knack for nailing each and every indecisive, vulnerable glance. She radiates the "scared little girl in a big glamorous world" hybrid of tenacity and timid awkwardness with an effortless, Oscar-worthy glow of truth. She's matched beautifully by Guy Pearce as pop art maestro Andy Warhol for whom Sedgwick was a famed muse. Pearce is pasty, pompous and utterly fantastic as the strange and troubled artist who takes many new friends into his world of drugs and glamour, but doesn't really commit in true friendship to any of them.

The film is detailed in its capturing of the era of the Warhol art scene. The mania of Andy and Edie's pop art collaboration springs to life and then comes to a crashing halt all in 2 hours time. It's a film that's frantic and sometimes painfully off-key, but it breathes with a life and an enthusiasm that upends whatever rightful claims could be leveled at its veracity and style. It's certainly not a film for everyone, but I have my suspicions that for a certain audience this could very well be a delightful surprise.