Jean Seberg - Against All Enemies

I don't need to review the whole story of Jean Seberg, or this film, which is well done.. Other reviews and sources do that. This film touches on several aspects of her career, just enough to give us a sense of who she was and how her support of the Black movement in the US was her undoing. And how the FBI was unjust in using her to discredit that black movement.. All that aside, Kristen Stewart is the real deal. This is an actress that I believe will win an Oscar if the right parts come her way.

A young woman, a superstar in the making, returns to her homeland where foundations are all shaking, where prejudice and hate, are causing some to jar and grate, where her views are not compliant, but she's resolute, defiant. So the government machine, sets up its wires to intervene, to listen in on what she's doing, to record all those she's wooing, to disrupt, antagonise, peddling nonsense and plain lies, a conspiracy of hate, of shadow puppets who collate.

Another incredible Kristen Stewart performance, leaves you under no illusion of the government machine that sought to destroy Jean Seberg because of her affiliations and relationships with the movements and people that were no longer prepared to live in a world of racism and discrimination.

I managed to watch this on Amazon streaming movies, my wife skipped.

This movie is somewhat better than its IMDb rating might suggest, mainly because mysteriously there are about 12% "1" votes in May 2020. No way could this ever be considered that poor a movie.

Kristen Stewart is chosen to play Jean Seberg, the story is mainly from 1968 to about 1971 or 1972 when she was in her early 30s. Living in France at that time with her French family she traveled to Los Angeles and during the trip took an interest in the black civil rights movement and protests.

This got her on the FBI radar and what followed was much surveillance, recording of conversations, and eventually a concerted effort to discredit her. It is noteworthy that she died at age 40 in 1979 from "probable suicide."

The movie is well made but I have to wonder, "Why was this movie made?" Seberg was a minor star and I suspect few living today remember any of her roles. Still it is a worthwhile movie if not a stellar one.

Jean Seberg's real life story is full of twists and turns and things that can be applied to things happening in 2020. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't separate itself from the pack and become anything fresh or original. And it feels like you can contribute some of the fault to the directing choices made by Benedict Andrews. The film never felt as engaging as the subject matter calls for. Seberg is deserving of a movie based on her life, but this certainly wasn't it.

4.8/10

It is sometimes hard to pinpoint where exactly films fail, the cinematography wasn't bad and you can definitely see that Kristen Stewart tried, but everything else about this film was below mediocre. Characters were one dimensional and lacked any depth, plot development, from the very moment the two main characters meet and then meet again, was abrupt and unbelievable. The other main characters - the good FBI agent vs. the bad one, were just as shallow. Not to mention the wives, whose role never went anywhere and might have as well not been in this film at all.

In the end, it simply wasn't interesting to watch and that is something no amount of blank long gazes and gratuitous nudity can fix.

If you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and watch 'The Lives of Others', a 2006 German film that shares a similar theme but actually does it justice.