Nouvelle Vague

Watched at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

While it's sappy energy and charm doesn't fully resonate with me as I would have hoped for, Richard Linklater has crafted a solid homage tale about Jean-Luc Godard's masterpiece Breathless and the French New Wave era. Capturing the essence of it's time period, production designs, style and the atmosphere perfectly of how Godard writes and approaches.

What I really appreciate about this movie is that Linklater approaches the editing, direction, atmosphere and writing just like Godard, being able to capture his style and atmosphere perfectly that feels respectful and interesting. With the production designs, sound and dialogue being great, it's homage and approach feels purposeful without feeling as if it was an Oscar Bait movie. Alongside with the good uses of black and white camera work, structure and fiction and non-fiction style approach.

The performances are pretty good as the cast were able to offer a good light to once well known actors and directors that existed. Although, there were a few performances, particularly Zoey Detuch, while good, at times some of the emotions and style felt weirdly off. Alongside with some of the pacing and the writing that definitely needs to some working.

Overall, another good movie from Richard Linklater.

In 2025 Richard Linklater released two exceptional works: Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon. Both films are filled with Easter eggs, offering extra enjoyment for audiences who love cinema and the arts. The former is a French black-and-white film set in the late 1950s, revolving around several months of a filmmaking process. Mostly shot on location in France, it tells the story of the sudden rise of a cinematic genius.

Nouvelle Vague portrays the making of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, with Guillaume Marbeck playing Godard, transporting cinephiles back to the moment when the French New Wave was born. At that time, many of Godard's Cahiers du Cinéma colleagues Truffaut, Chabrol, etc., had already completed their debut films. The story begins when Truffaut brings The 400 Blows to a film festival, drawing the attention of the film criticism world toward Godard, who was known for his penetrating views and who believed that a true film critic should make a film themselves. Everyone was curious (and somewhat nervous) about what kind of film this critic-turned-director would make. In the end, this genius repeatedly broke rules and conventions, endlessly and joyfully.

What he subverted was not only cinematic language itself (everyone knows Breathless is full of jump cuts and improvisation), but also the filmmaking process. Godard constantly disrupted the production schedule, creating entirely according to his inspiration of the day. This left the female lead, the American actress Jean Seberg (played by Zoey Deutch, perfectly cast), rather confused. But her co-star, the debuting actor who would later become a major screen icon, Jean-Paul Belmondo (played by Aubry Dullin), seemed to enjoy the experience and threw himself into the filming. Sparks flew constantly among the three of them during production, of course with other crew members (including the assistant director, cinematographer, makeup, etc.) always present on set. They simply let Godard manipulate everything in his seemingly chaotic way: sometimes asking actors to stage little improvisational plays, other times sending them wandering aimlessly through the streets just to capture the atmosphere. When filming wrapped, Seberg half-jokingly told her manager she would never work with Godard again.

Yet Linklater precisely highlights Godard's brilliance through the constant capturing of those flashes of inspiration during the creative process, as well as the invaluable spirit of the entire French New Wave.

As "Nouvelle Vague" (2025 release from France; 106 min.) opens, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol are watching a movie in a theater. Afterwards they meet up with friends somewhere. It turns out that Godard is the only one of the three still to direct his first movie, but he claims that he is ready to do so. At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie...

Couple of comments: this is the latest from director Richard Linklater ("Boyhood", "Everybody Wants Some!!"). Here he goes to France to recreate how Godard filmed his 1960 debut film "Breathless", and Linklater does so by using the New Wave style of filming that came in vogue 65 years ago. The idea is as simple as it is brilliant. The devil is of course in the details, and that is where the production team really shines. I couldn't stop marveling at how authentic Paris circa 1959-1960 looks. Check out the countless vintage cars! Oh, and did I mention that the film is in glorious B&W, and with a screen ratio of 4:3? Just like "Breathless" itself. The acting performances are stellar throughout, including Guillaume Marbeck as Godard and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo. But the highest praise belongs to Zoey Deutch, playing Jean Seberg, the American actress based in Paris. Deutch captures it perfectly. They act out a number of pivotal scenes of "Breathless" but always showing it as someone observing it, not in it. If it sounds like I'm gushing about "Nouvelle Vague", well it's because I am!

"Nouvelle Vague" premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival to immediate and wide critical acclaim. The Cannes screening caused a bidding war for the movie's distribution rights (ultimately won by Netflix). The movie is currently rated 90% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's easy to see why. "Nouvelle Vage" started streaming on Netflix this weekend, and I couldn't wait to see it. If you are a fan of Richard Linklater's or Zoey Deutch's earlier work, or simply a fan of French movies from the early 1960's, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion. You won't regret it!

This movie is a joyride to experience the not-so-joyful process of filmmaking as well as a good homage to the legend and one of the greatest times in cinema history. I think it's done so perfectly that I almost give it 5 stars.

Linklater's signature mise-en-scène is here, but this film feels less personal and more intimately observational. I went in expecting a Midnight in Paris vibe, and I couldn't have been more wrong. I'm struck by Linklater's choice of a new approach, especially from a director known for an almost obsessive realism-like shooting Boyhood over 12 years or Merrily We Roll Along for two decades. Zoey Deutch, who plays Jean Seberg, told us that Linklater encouraged the actors to interpret rather than impersonate. The result is a film that feels remarkably authentic and free, because it all comes from the genuine experiences of the crew. As Linklater himself said, "It's about a bunch of young people making a film." This is a movie that any filmmaker or cinephile will absolutely adore.

(There is a line from the movie that I really LOVE and it goes like this - "when you direct a film, you are actually making 5 films: one when you write it, one when you cast it, one when you shoot it, one when you release it." The closest thing I found is from Robert Bresson: "A film is born three times. First in the writing of the script, then in the shooting, and finally in the editing". I need to print it out and put it above my desk.)

I was bouncing back and forth between a 3.5/5 or a 4/5. I think I'd lean toward the latter if I had to pick, but on a 10-point scale, maybe a 7.5/10. Nouvelle Vague seems all very simple, and feels effortless, but then the craft here feels meticulous. It puts a lot of work into feeling loose and spontaneous, which is fitting when it's about such a loose and spontaneous movie. Nouvelle Vague tricks you into thinking Linklater and co. Are winging it, but this would've been tremendously difficult to make so authentically. All the recreated locations and the way it was shot... all perfect, like they went back in time to film this in 1960. The casting here is immense, and I particularly really forgot it was an actor playing Godard after a couple of scenes. The frame Aubry Dullin appears, I was shocked it wasn't actually Belmondo, because the appearance is uncanny. And then Belmondo is actually embodied beyond the physical resemblance, and I think the same mostly went for Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg.

The casting and acting for the three leads were remarkable, and I was somewhat familiar with a few of the other side players (definitely not all, and I think you'd have to be super familiar with the French New Wave to know them all), but the casting was on point there, too. If 2026 is the first year they give out a Best Casting award at the Oscars, Nouvelle Vague is a shoo-in nomination.

Narratively and thematically, it isn't much more than a homage, or an excuse for Richard Linklater to show his appreciation for Godard, Breathless, and the French New Wave, but I enjoyed the craft here enough so that it was more than just charming. It shines on a technical front while also being pretty entertaining. I would've loved more time spent on the post-production of Breathless, and maybe a few scenes showing more of its release and the aftermath, but then again, Nouvelle Vague finishing a little abruptly (and with Godard still kind of being a jerk, albeit a jerk who'd proven he *probably* knew what he was doing) feels very New Wave, so maybe that potential weakness is actually a strength.

But Linklater's still got it. He is just pumping out constant good (and sometimes great) movies, like one every year or two. He's a bit underappreciated, really.