Movie Review: Factory Girl

"What can you offer my daughter?" "I can maker her famous." "Famous?" "Yeah, isn't that what we all really want, to be famous?" Edie Sedgwick, muse of Andy Warhol, cousin of Kyra Sedgwick, artist, sculptor, jeweler, movie star, debutante and enigma of the 1960's. Her story is told in film. This film is dark at times and portrays both a period of time and a philosophy of life that could be most summed up in the life of Edie Sedgwick. She died at the tender age of 28 but not without more crazy experiences than most will experience in a lifetime. This story really focuses on her relationship with Andy which provides an interesting glimpse into the person who was responsible changing the way the world viewed art and commercialism. I was completely unfamiliar with both of these characters but they sparked my curiosity in a lot of ways. Edie came from a significant New England family line but dealt with severe family dysfunction and sexual and emotional abuse from her father and immediate family. She seemed to have a spirit about her that captured the attention of all wherever she went. She lived a carefree, spontaneous, and often empty life seeking freedom from her inner demons but with subconscious resignation that it was futile and that they would ultimately do her in. Hers is a story that we see played out time and time again just in lesser degrees. If the enemy, the devil, all that is evil and twisted in the world, whatever you want to call 'that,' gets a hold of a child and can frustrate and derail the healthy development of a child then the rest of their life they will be a shell of a person looking for hope, meaning, relationship, love, trust in any and all ways imaginable. I believe that no amount of self-talk and counseling can allow this person/these people to experience any semblance of a normal life ever again. To some extent we all enter adulthood bruised and broken but for children of divorce to children of sexual, emotional or physical abuse, the damage is often too much to overcome. I personally believe that this is exactly why God, wrecked that this can and does happen, intervened at one point in history for all of history and through what the image of the invisible God, Jesus, did reverse the effects that our sin and selfishness have caused. I believe that the Edie's of the world and the Edie in me have hope that their relationship with God, with others, and with themselves can be restored. An interesting movie, not one I'd necessarily recommend but one that proves that those with fame and fortune suffer through many of the same, if not more, of the complicated and confusing things of life...