Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor) is a militant feminist whose attempted murder of Andy Warhol brought instant fame to her radically anti-male SCUM Manifesto. Dropping out of grad school in the midsixties, the brilliant yet volatile Solanas survived in New York City as a destitute artist, sex worker, and panhandler, soon striking up a friendship with Warhol superstar Candy Darling that brought her briefly into the orbit of the world’s premier pop artist.
Adapted from Candy Darling’s letters and diaries with vivid, hallucinatory attention to historical detail, director Mary Harron (American Psycho) captures the explosive cross-pollination of New York’s political and artistic countercultures as well as the creativity, snobbery, and decadence at the heart of the legendary Factory. Anchored by pitch-perfect performances—and featuring a blistering score by John Cale as well as covers of sixties hits by some of the nineties’ most iconic bands (R.E.M., Wilco)—I Shot Andy Warhol is an incisive portrait of a rebel without an outlet and the soon-to-be-lost generation she came to define.