'Nouvelle Vague' review: Richard Linklater's tribute to Jean-Luc Godard and 'Breathless' is good vibes only
Richard Linklater is having a very busy 2025.
The Boyhood and Before Sunrise director has not one but two projects on the film festival circuit. Both are playing the New York Film Festival, and both pay tribute to real-life artists of song and screen.
Blue Moon, the first of the pair to hit theaters, is a biopic of American lyricist Lorenz Hart, the former creative partner of Richard Rodgers. Linklater's second film of the year, Nouvelle Vague, follows suit, paying loving tribute to the French New Wave movement and to Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature, Breathless (À bout de souffle).
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Linklater's reverence for Breathless and the entire French New Wave are evident in each frame. But can that love sometimes get in Nouvelle Vague's own way?
What is Nouvelle Vague about?
The year is 1959, the place is Paris, and the French New Wave movement is in full swing. Cahiers du Cinéma film critics like François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) and Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson) have made their directorial debuts, focusing on auteur-driven movies above all else. One of their fellow critics, Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), is champing at the bit to make his first feature film. After all, in his own words, the only way to critique a movie is to make one yourself.
Godard finally gets the chance with Breathless, the story of criminal Michel Poiccard and Patricia, the American woman he loves. While the film became one of the French New Wave's most influential works, its production was fairly chaotic. Working on a low budget, and filming over just 23 days (Nouvelle Vague cuts that number to 20), Godard basically improvised the film as he went, much to the consternation of producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) and American star Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch). Linklater reimagines that chaos in its entirety, charting the film's journey from development to post-production.
Nouvelle Vague formally pays tribute to the French New Wave, but isn't an outright copy.
In order to submerge audiences in the world of the French New Wave, Linklater adopts some elements of its style. Told almost entirely in French, Nouvelle Vague is shot in black and white with a 4:3 ratio, complete with film grain to give it an older feel.
However, Linklater doesn't totally ape the filmmaking techniques Godard pioneered during the making of Breathless, such as jump cuts. Instead, he focuses more on clueing the audience into how Godard came to these techniques. For the guerilla-style shooting on the streets of Paris, Linklater introduces the false mail cart that hid Breathless' handheld camera, along with cinematographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat). For Breathless' long walk-and-talk sequences, Linklater dutifully follows stars Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) as they stroll the Champs-Élysées. His prime focus here isn't Godard's filming, but rather his plan to dub over whatever Seberg and Belmondo are saying in post. Instead of speaking in character, the two actors wonder aloud just what the rest of the shoot has in store for them.
The focus on process propels Nouvelle Vague, offering up a loving look at the ups and downs of the film's production. But the film's true strengths lie not in Linklater's take on Godard's style, but rather in Linklater's own strength as the master of the hangout movie. Yes, watching Godard choreograph a scene in real time is compelling. But if you've seen Breathless, you've already seen these scenes. You know how they play out!
Instead, what's more compelling is the downtime between filming: the crew hanging out in a café, Seberg teaching Belmondo American dance moves, Godard playing pinball. These scenes allow us to understand the characters better as people, as opposed to the pillars of the French New Wave they'd become.
Marbeck's Godard is the standout here. Eyes perpetually hidden behind sunglasses and a lit cigarette always at his lips, Marbeck plays Godard as part genius, part petulant child. As a result, Nouvelle Vague seems both reverent of and humored by Godard's many, many, many philosophical tirades on the subject of filmmaking. The mix lets Linklater bring a lightness to Nouvelle Vague's numerous production scenes, while also paying respect to the man who made Breathless possible.
At times, Linklater's reverence can overpower Nouvelle Vague.
Occasionally, though, the reverence for Breathless can take over Nouvelle Vague, for the worse. Linklater and screenwriters Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo, whose script Michèle Halberstadt and Laetitia Masson adapted into French, dutifully catalog the entire 20-day Breathless shoot. They hit major beats quickly. Here's how Godard filmed Michel's shootout with a policeman! Here's how he got the shot of the Paris streetlamps turning on behind Michel!
Yet after a while, these brief vignettes can begin to seem like Nouvelle Vague going through the motions, as if Linklater has a checklist of every piece of Breathless behind-the-scenes trivia he needs to account for. At these points, Nouvelle Vague loses the improvisational sense of play that its own muse strove so hard for while shooting Breathless.
Overall, though, Nouvelle Vague proves a sweet tribute to an influential film movement, one that doesn't take itself too seriously. If you're a French New Wave fan, come for the Breathless tributes, but stay for the hangout vibes.
Nouvelle Vague was reviewed out of the New York Film Festival. Nouvelle Vague hits select theaters Oct. 31 before coming to Netflix Nov. 14.
Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.
