Kristen Stewart, no longer the teenage Twilight heartthrob, dons short-cropped and frosted hair in the very mature and controversial role of Jean Seberg, the American actress, turned Black Panther supporter.
The film opens on the flames of Joan of Arc, perhaps Seberg’s most famous role, which is ironic given her own life with go up in celluloid flames…
It’s Paris, 1968, where Seberg lives with her husband, Romain Gary (Yvan Atta) and their young son. Heading back to Los Angeles solo, it’s on the flight where Seberg encounters activist Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie) ranting and raving that he belongs in first class since he’s traveling with Malcolm X’s widow. Seberg offers to give up her seat, and as soon as the airplane lands, the affair begins. Donating her heart and her wallet to this radical cause we begin to see a shift in Seberg’s priorities. As a result, the FBI Agents Carl Kowalski (Vince Vaughn) and Jack Solomon (Jack O’Connell) are instructed to target her before eventually trashing her reputation with outright lies. The consequences for her mental health are cruel and eventually life-altering.
The movie feels very Mod Squad meets Catch Me if You Can but it’s Benedict Andrews direction that feels so spot-on to the era, that one would expect Sidney Poitier to arrive on set at any moment.
Stewart does an astounding job holding center stage and when she’s on stage, despite lacking in the sexy elegance/presence other leading ladies possess. She somehow owns this film as though the scrappy, boyish Seberg was the role she’s waited for. Only Hilary Swank might have played this character better. That being said, and without being familiar with many Jean Seberg roles other than viewing Godard’s Breathless years ago, one can’t gage accuracy the way we might for someone portraying Natalie Wood or Elizabeth Taylor.
When asked in the film ‘Who is Jean Seberg?’ she fails at an answer. But the story’s subject matter strangely coincides with today’s Black Lives Matter movements which is sad. Keeping us as color blind as the 60s. America wanted the ‘girl-next-door’ midwestern actress, but it was quite a feat for her to financially back the Black Panthers. All this from a girl who landed the title role from 18,000 hopefuls in Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan at the age of eighteen and went on to perform in over thirty more films until her mysterious death in Paris, 1979.