Candy Darling was the queen of Andy Warhol’s Factory in the early 1970s. Born James Slattery in 1944 in Massapequa, New York — a place where uniformity thrived — Candy knew at a young age that she simply did not fit in. Lonely and obsessed with movies, she wrote in her diary (voiced by actor Chloë Sevigny), “Someday I’ll be a movie star and I’ll be rich and famous and have all the friends I want.” An unhappy home life sent her packing for New York City. Yearning to be the next Kim Novak, she fit right in.

In New York, Candy played the ultimate glamour girl in tandem with her sister Warhol “superstars,” Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn, but fame and happiness were fleeting. Beautiful Darling is framed by the events of Jeremiah Newton, Candy’s best friend, as he prepares to transfer her ashes to his family’s burial plot. Newton lived with Candy off and on and became her confidant and trusted friend.

This extraordinary documentary combines rare archival film and photographs, audio recordings, Candy’s diary entries, and a veritable who’s who of those who survived the scene — Gerard Malanga, Fran Lebowitz, Jayne County, Paul Morrissey, and John Waters — as well as some voices from beyond the grave, including Candy’s. Beautiful Darling is a poignant portrait of a person who dared to live her dream, becoming her own artful creation.