★★★
In the late 1960s, French New Wave icon Jean Seberg becomes a target of the FBI because of her political and romantic involvement with civil rights activist Hakim Jamal.
Classification: 15
"Our job is to embarrass her!"
No the job of the FBI isn't to stop criminal activity, protect public decency, or even wisely utilise taxpayer money but instead to spy, harass and embarrass an actress who dared defy the American status quo and support the civil rights movement. Jean Seberg's story similar to 2019's biopic Judy follows how celebrities and especially women are held to an idealistic standard and those who deviate from it are punished, shamed and ostracised. Benedict Arnold's film through a tragic and elegant performance from Kristen Stewart tells the remarkable true story of how actress Jean Seberg became the target of the FBI's illegal COINTELPRO surveillance operation. A program which routinely targeted individuals that were believed to hold anti-American interests such as the civil rights movement, Anti-Vietnam protests and specific to the film the Black Panther Party.
Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse's script doesn't cover race in America particularly well as Seberg's reasons for associating with the Black Panthers and specifically Hakim Jamal are covered mostly through passing expository dialogue. Stewart's performance establishes her as an empathetic, passionate kind woman who sought real effective ways to change the world but the initial catalyst her relationship with Jamal and the movement remains unclear. They meet on an aeroplane and suddenly Seberg is writing checks, having an affair and becomes the target of a federal investigation herself as the FBI shifts their focus from Jamal to her. Seberg still takes large historical license in how it tells its story through the fictional character of agent Jack Solomon and how he becomes conflicted by his role in her breakdown. Whether its Benedict Andrews' way to show that FBI agents aren't all bad or to show the audience first hand the rationale behind the abuse, O'Connell and Vince Vaughn's presence in the film deflates the tension to Seberg's paranoia. They're good performances highlighting patriarchal authority in America as Vaughn's chauvinistic attitudes drive him more in his investigation than any real sense of justice; essentially punishing anyone who dares question white male America. It gives unnerving context to the opposition Seberg and Jamal face in their crusades but undermines Seberg's own story as it all ties back to Solomon's guilt. The pain Seberg suffers is more in service to Solomon's story and emotional pain rather than to her own and makes the effort to tell the truth of Seberg's tragedy feel paradoxical in execution.
Kristen Stewart as Jean Seberg is phenomenal, capturing the graceful beauty of the era and makes a very standard biopic captivating through her sheer presence alone. While the script fails in capturing her emotional isolation due to the audience hindsight in seeing every action the FBI takes, Stewart still energises the film with her deeply empathetic charisma as Seberg descends into crippling paranoia. The lengths the FBI goes to torture her are barbaric and Stewart makes every consequence to their actions all the more damning. The tense thriller storylines Andrews wants to build lose their edge though and even though his direction speaks to contemporary ideas of the surveillance state, the audience never grasps onto the terror Seberg wants to convey. This ambiguity to watching Seberg's life fall apart doesn't have the same power to it as our knowledge of the events connects us more to Solomon's plight rather than Seberg's. Celebrity gossip shaming, rumour mills, our disturbing obsessions to the private lives of public figures but Seberg takes on far darker implications as she becomes the obsession of government officials. One FBI agent crudely remarks that Director J. Edgar Hoover "likes to hear the bedsprings squeak" to Solomon's disgust, another example of how women's objectification is just another tool for men's gratification.
Seberg an actress famous for the French New Wave and the avant-garde filmmaking has her biopic, unfortunately, take on a very typical approach. Andrews incorporates imagery from her most famous roles particularly the infamous scene where Seberg was burnt at the stake in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan but all of that arthouse cinema particularly Breathless that defined her career is distilled through his standard direction. Jahmin Assa's production design and Michael Wilkinson's costume design recreate the era effectively and Stewart looks stunning in every outfit, her radiant allure giving every scene a much-needed jolt of life. Andrews does make Seberg an interesting viewing however despite scripting issues as those unaware of her story become enthralled in the machiavellian acts taken to destroy her. Seberg is limited in how it explores its more unnerving themes of media influence, government oversight along with race and feminism in America but Stewart's performance compels audiences to learn more about the woman before them and the struggles that continue to permeate today.
A knockout performance in a film that could have done better by its subject, Seberg's failure to give focus solely to Kristen Stewart hurts the character's truth especially since the film builds its conflicts from Jean Seberg's struggles. The FBI are the villains of the piece but by having the drama be filtered through Jack O'Connell's fictional character, it removes Seberg's agency in her own biopic. Stewart and Andrews achieve in creating something compelling with his film but considering the history and legacy of Jean Seberg, it could have gone so much further.
Director: #BenedictAndrews
Cast: #KristenStewart, #JackOConnell, #MargaretQualley, #ColmMeaney #ZazieBeetz, #StephenRoot, #AnthonyMackie, #VinceVaughn
Release Date: January 10th 2020
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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