Review: Kristen Stewart shines in 'Seberg,' a biography that soft-pedals the FBI's harassment of the '60s star

It makes perfect sense that Kristen Stewart would be drawn to a project like “Seberg,” a look at the most tumultuous years of actress Jean Seberg’s career — and Stewart is by far the best thing in this luxuriously shot and deeply flawed biography.

Stewart and Seberg have a lot in common: Two American starlets known for short hair, gamine beauty, a rebellious streak, and splitting time between making Hollywood pabulum and artistically challenging French films. And Stewart channels her own mystique into Seberg’s, capturing the soul of a fellow actor wanting to use her fame to make a statement.

The movie begins in 1968, when Seberg — world famous as “the girl in the International Herald Tribune shirt” in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” — leaves Paris to audition in Hollywood for a big-budget musical. (The title isn’t spoken, but it’s “Paint Your Wagon,” in which Seberg starred with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood.) She leaves behind her husband, the filmmaker Romain Gary (Yvan Attal), and their son.

On the plane, Seberg encounters a black activist, Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), who’s associated with the Black Panther Party. On the tarmac in Los Angeles, Seberg joins an impromptu Black Panther rally, raising her fist in solidarity in front of newspaper photographers. There’s someone else at the airport with a camera: Jack Solomon (played by Jack O’Connell), a rookie FBI agent performing surveillance on the Panthers.

Solomon’s boss in the FBI’s L.A. office, Frank Ellroy (Colm Meaney), gets orders all the way from J. Edgar Hoover to make Seberg a target of investigation. Solomon and a veteran agent (Vince Vaughn) stake out her house, and eventually plant microphones in every room — particularly the bedroom. (“Hoover likes to hear the bedsprings,” another agent says.) The goal is to “neutralize” Seberg as a symbol, so she can’t use her fame and wealth to further political causes Hoover doesn’t like.

The FBI’s abhorrent tactics to silence American citizens are well documented (type “COINTELPRO” into your favorite search engine, if you trust it), and screenwriters Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, if anything, underplay the horrors Seberg and others suffered. What’s infuriating here is that Solomon, a composite character, is depicted as a reluctant smear artist, wrestling with his conscience — and prodded by his wife, Linette (Margaret Qualley) — to feel guilty about what the FBI did to her. The script, and director Benedict Andrews, is letting the FBI off too easily.

When the movie works, it’s because of Stewart’s fearless, flawless performance. (Also give credit to cinematographer Rachel Morrison, who captures the ‘60s Hollywood setting gorgeously.)

Stewart channels Seberg’s potent mix of naivety, stubbornness and what these days we would call white-girl privilege as she defiantly backs Jamal’s causes — and, for a time, shares his bed — in the face of warnings that her reputation and career will be ruined. Stewart also has a handle on the sensitive soul, the one scarred physically and emotionally by Otto Preminger (her director on “Joan of Arc”) and other men, that Seberg was. It’s a powerful portrayal trapped in an unworthy movie.

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‘Seberg’

★★1/2

Opened December 13, 2019, in select cities; opens Friday, February 28, at several theaters in Utah. Rated R for language, sexual content/nudity and some drug use. Running time: 102 minutes.