Kristen Stewart is "Seberg" in this 2019 film about the FBI stalking, surveillance, and harassment of Jean Seberg, due to her involvement with the Black Panthers.
This is, I believe, highly fictionalized, with the subplot of one of the FBI operatives (Jack O'Connell), who discovers a conscience and tries to warn Jean anonymously to return to France and stop donating to the Panthers.
We could have done without that plot, as I'm sure there was no FBI man who gave a damn about her - they were under orders from Hoover to destroy her.
The second subplot concerned an alleged lover, Hakim Jamal, played by Anthony Mackie, and his wife finding out he was having an affair with Seberg. In truth no one knows if she really did or not.
All of this takes away from the harrowing story of Jean Seberg, a believer in civil rights who supported the work of the Black Panthers. The Panthers' core activity initially was to nutrition, recreation, and education to disadvantaged children, and Seberg volunteered with them. She was very generous with her checkbook, which brought the FBI down on her.
The FBI planted a rumor that the baby she was carrying, a girl, was fathered by Hakim Jamal. When Seberg miscarried, she returned to her home town and had a funeral with an open casket, so people could see the baby was white. This is not mentioned in the film, though it is mentioned that she sued Newsweek (she won damages).
The acting was pretty good, though it couldn't be much more because we didn't learn too much about the characters - Yvan Atal as Seberg's husband, Romain Gary, Vince Vaughn as an FBI operative, Stephen Root as Seberg's nervous agent.
Kristen Stewart did a good job in the dramatic scenes, but for me didn't have much presence in the rest of it. There was something very luminous about Jean Seberg, which probably can't be captured by another actress. She was more than beautiful, which is why, even though she wasn't much of an actress, she had such a quick rise to fame. Stewart is a little on the tough side. There was a British actress, Miranda Raison, who could have played Seberg some years ago. At the moment I can't think of anyone else.
All in all, a not very exciting look at one of the saddest stories of the last century.
