Time: 106 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Offensive language
Cast:
Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard
Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg
Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo
Director: Richard Linklater

I went into Nouvelle Vague a bit unprepared. I knew that it was one of Richard Linklater’s 2025 films (alongside Blue Moon) and was about Jean-Luc Godard, someone who I’ve heard a lot about, but wasn’t all that familiar with. As soon as the movie started, I immediately got the feeling that I was a little unprepared. However I finished the movie, and while I felt a little mixed about it, overall, I did enjoy it.

Nouvelle Vague is about the filming of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, which was seemingly the movie that kicked off the French New Wave. The issue is that I’m a bit out of my zone here; I’m not familiar with that period, I’ve only seen La Chinoise from Godard, and most of all, I have not watched Breathless. Considering that this is a movie about the making of Breathless, this detracted from my viewing experience. So if you are intending on watching Nouvelle Vague at some point, I’d recommend checking out Breathless beforehand if you can, even just for context. Nouvelle Vague’s first act takes place before the filming of the movie, and that’s where I felt the most out of place, due to my lack of knowledge about the time period and unfamiliarity with most of the people shown. Once it got to the actual filming however, it became a comedy about people making a movie together and I started to get on board with it.

Despite my lack of experience and knowledge about the French New Wave, Nouvelle Vague doesn’t have much commentary about the period, beyond some characters musing on what art should be. I didn’t detect much depth or substance about Breathless, the French New Wave, Godard, etc. Even the representation of Godard seems relatively tame (based on his reputation at least); while it is clear that it’s frustrating working with him, at most it just eye-rolls at him and his creative process. It doesn’t seem interested in dissecting him or his work either, though I don’t think that Nouvelle Vague is interested in saying anything deep about Godard or the French New Wave. Still, it is clear that Linklater is passionate about this time period. If you have watched Breathless, you’ll probably recognise the people and scenes that Nouvelle Vague recreates and references. While I wished that I had watched Breathless beforehand, it’s easy to enjoy Nouvelle Vague without it. It feels content to just let events play out without any drive or urgency and almost feels like a hangout movie. As a result, it gets quite repetitive as it cycles between many similar scenes and I wasn’t invested in the plot, but I found it watchable and enjoyable. It was occasionally funny and I was willing to just follow along with it.

The performances are great, with Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin playing their roles really well. Marbeck is particularly good as Jean-Luc Godard. I can’t speak as to how accurate their portrayals were to the real people, but I liked their work here.

Richard Linklater directs this really well, it comes across that he’s passionate about this period, with the painstaking way he recreates and reconstructs the setting. The black and white cinematography with the specific aspect ratios and occasional cigarette burns in the top right corner along with the sound design does a lot to capture the visual style of the films of the time.

While Nouvelle Vague is a bit slow, repetitive and I didn’t get much from it, it’s still a watchable, well directed, and greatly performed homage.