When Andy Warhol’s overprotective brothers make his ambitious art-school buddy Philip Pearlstein swear he’ll keep their oddball sibling safe when they move to New York in 1949 to make it as artists, he has no idea what he’s in for. Seventy years later, his daughter forces him to spill the tea about their crazy adventures. Based on actual events.

SYNOPSIS:

New York, 2018. 94-year-old PHILIP PEARLSTEIN, a well-known artist, grudgingly agrees to be interviewed by his daughter JULIA for a documentary about his long-ago friendship with ANDY WARHOL. She says she’s trying to cement her father’s legacy through the film, using Andy as a lure to bring in audiences. As he recounts his past, memories flicker to life: a portrait not just of Warhol before fame, but of two young artists bound by ambition, talent, and just a touch of codependency.

Pittsburgh, 1946. The first day of art school, shy, awkward Andy asks returning G.I. Philip, “What’s it like to be famous?” Philip had been written about in Life magazine and even as a kid, Andy worshipped fame. They become fast friends. Philip persuades Andy to move to New York with him after graduation to try to make it as commercial artists. There’s only one hitch: Andy’s older brothers won’t let naïve young Andy go unless Philip swears to be responsible for him. Reluctantly, he swears. In New York, the two live in one roach-infested sublet after another as they try to make their fortunes. Philip constantly finds himself playing caretaker to Andy’s chaos—like the time Andy gets chased relentlessly by a feather duster-wielding cross-dressing housekeeper. Their landlady evicts them when her nudist girlfriend has a psychotic break, and they move on with their separate lives. Andy becomes a top commercial artist and bon vivant. Philip marries Andy’s friend DOROTHY, has children and becomes a successful realist painter. Andy envies Philip’s career as a fine artist and asks for help getting an exhibit. They have a falling out when Philip’s gallery contacts refuse to exhibit Andy’s homoerotic work. Then Andy becomes a Pop superstar. When Philip next runs into Andy, the two of them compare scars: Andy’s from being shot by a radical feminist, Philip’s from gallbladder surgery. When Dorothy asks if they’re going to compare penises too, Andy’s boyfriend laughs a bit too much for Andy’s comfort.

In the present, Philip snaps at Julia one afternoon, suggesting that she’s exploiting his life to further her own career. Hurt, she wraps filming for the day, mentioning that she needs to come up with a “boffo” ending for the film. Feeling guilty, the next day Philip tells a wild tale about a climactic showdown with Andy in a gallery in Germany. Julia, who knows this never happened, calls him out. He shrugs: she wanted a good ending, so he gave her one. The truth? Andy snubbed him. A year later, he died. No climax. No catharsis. Just life. A few weeks later, Dorothy dies. Devastated, Philip reflects on how he met her through Andy, on how life changes people, on how not all endings are dramatic. Nearing 95, he’s in a race to paint as much as he can before his own end arrives. With a wry smile, he jokes that Andy will probably eclipse him at his own funeral—just like he did in life.