Nouvelle Vague (2025) (French Language)- BFI London Film Festival 2025

Review

106min

Genre:       Fact-based, Comedy, Drama

Director:    Richard Linklater

Cast:         Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin…and more

Writers:     Holly Gent, Laetitia Masson, Vincent Palmo Jr. & Michèle Pétin

-Synopsis-

In Paris of the late 1950s, French film critic Jean-Luc Godard decides the best way to challenge the filmmaking conventions of the time is by making his own feature debut, gathering a rag-tag group of like-minded characters behind and in front of the camera to craft a seminal independent picture and a pillar of the revolutionary French New Wave of cinema—1960’s ‘Breathless’.

Ever since making his mark on the American indie film renaissance of the 1990s with ‘Slacker’ and establishing himself as one of its principal figures, American writer/director/producer Richard Linklater has proven his chops as one of the most versatile filmmakers of that movement with everything from hip youth culture comedies like ‘Dazed and Confused’, ‘SubUrbia’ and ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ to nuanced long-gestating dramas like the postmodern romance ‘Before’ trilogy and coming-of-age drama ‘Boyhood’, all the way to lighter fare like family classic ‘School of Rock’ and biographical crime comedy ‘Hit Man’.

Now the visionary Texan conquers another filmmaking frontier by crossing the language barrier and delivering his first fully-fledged French flick and joining the popular Hollywood club of films about films. Taking a trip down cinematic memory lane and paying a delightful tribute to a major influence for his generation and indeed those who came before—the godfathers of the modern independent film movement and free-wheeling filmmaking, the pioneers of the “Nouvelle Vague”—creating a biographical period dramedy told in the style and with the irreverent spirit of its subject, a reverential ode to Jean-Luc Godard, and a cinephilic love-letter to the French New Wave and revolutionary filmmaking.

Guillaume Marbeck stars as Godard himself, a self-styled self-assured respected 1950s French film critic with directorial aspirations and a strong cinematic ethos, striving to make a mark on the artform alongside his like-minded Nouvelle Vague cohorts and fellow critics at “Cahiers du Cinéma” magazine like Éric Rohmer (Côme Thieulin) and Jacques Rivette (Jonas Marmy), plus Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson) and Adrien Rouyard (François Truffaut) who give him the chance when they provide the original story for unconventional crime drama/romance ‘Breathless’. Armed with this blueprint and a guerilla filmmaking mindset Godard proceeds to improvise a would-be milestone of the movement, gathering a rag-tag troupe of fleet-footed fellow filmmakers behind the camera and recruiting his two disparate young stars—free-spirited and game young French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) and more reluctant glamorous young Hollywood starlet Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch)—as the writer/director proceeds to tick off scene after scene whilst exasperating and inspiring his cast & crew in equal measure, on his way to changing cinema forever.

If history has proven anything it’s that Hollywood loves making films and TV shows about itself and what they do, occasionally dipping into the past to chronicle the making of something influential, but it’s a rare occasion when we get to see the making of something seminal from cinema far from Tinseltown. Enter Linklater to delightfully dip his toes into French cinema history and deliver a charming and enchanting ode to impromptu, intuitive, impulsive, naturalistic, minimalist, anti-conventional, lightning-fast guerilla filmmaking, and give us a light look at a subversive and revolutionary movement fuelled by the rejection of prescribed and traditional moviemaking methods of the time in France . . . and beyond.

‘Nouvelle Vague’ certainly doesn’t’ lack in the style stakes and boasts top notch costumes and well as the matching immaculate set dressing and production design to faithfully re-create Paris of the late 1950s, all shot in vivid black & white and using a classic narrow academy ratio to stay true to 1960’s ‘Breathless’, which when combined with a structure which sees Linklater and his squad of screenwriters cover almost every scene in the French New Wave classic, this almost feels like a fly-on-the-wall documentary on the making of the film it depicts, albeit a groovy and stylish one with the energetic mood set by a soundtrack of classic French pop and cool jazz, further paying tribute to Godard’s signature flick.

‘Nouvelle Vague’ has a certain mid-century energy and an irreverent joie de vivre that feels fitting for the cinematic era and movement it depicts, and indeed the personality of the figures involved, not to mention the subsequent 1960s counterculture it would help to feed. But Linklater thankfully steers clear of the more sombre and militant social, cultural, and political youth movements which would be directly influenced by this cinematic revolution, and partially led by Godard and his contemporaries.

Perhaps the best of Linklater’s many good choices here though are his casting picks as he scoured the ranks of up-and-coming French actors to nail the people involved in the making of ‘Breathless’—both in front of and behind the constantly moving camera—as well as principal figures of the French New Wave, both in terms of appearance and personality. Playing the two young stars of Godard’s revolutionary 1960 classic and the front-of-camera leads in Linklater’s making-of chronicle, Zoey Deutch is excellent as the beguiling Nouvelle Vague icon Jean Seberg, re-creating her bewitching carefree charms when acting whilst simultaneously revealing the young American starlet’s reservations about the direction of the cinematic experiment she finds herself the face of,  and the frustrating nature of the director who helms it. Meanwhile as a young Jean-Paul Belmondo playing the impulsive ‘Breathless’ cool criminal co-lead, newcomer Aubry Dullin proves a revelation as he seamlessly captures the French film legend’s charisma and free spirit as well as his game attitude towards the whole endeavour, not to mention bearing a clear Belmondo family resemblance.

However the true star of the show is the film’s principal subject Jean-Luc Godard and Guillaume Marbeck who plays him with such assuredness and gusto, as the up-and-coming French star completely captures the sunglasses-wearing chain-smoking auteur’s look and persona, seamlessly embodying a moderately pompous and judgemental yet charismatic and charming walking encyclopaedia of artistic and philosophical quotes, not to mention cinematic references. A confounding iconoclastic figure with a clear vision and ethos, yet seemingly improvising his way to cinematic glory.

The biggest success here is the combination of choices made by Linklater & co which amount to something so genuine that it not only looks and sounds like a French film made in the late 1950s or early 60s, but it feels like ‘Breathless’ itself, like a behind-the-scenes extension of Godard’s own work. A fitting tribute to the revolutionary mentality and groundbreaking fleet-footed techniques born out of necessity and imagination but serving a clear vision—everything from a wheelchair as a camera dolly to guerrilla shooting on the streets with unsuspecting public participants—which changed an industry and inspired generations, as the American filmmaker delivers a gem of a French cinematic time capsule . . . with panache and a bit of je ne sais quoi.

The Bottom Line…

A picture-perfect portrait of making a classic seminal French flick and a playful personal ode to Jean-Luc Godard and the movement he helped to pioneer, ‘Nouvelle Vague’ works as a delightfully droll dramedy film about a film for general audiences, but excels as an iconoclastic tribute to revolutionary filmmaking for those more familiar with Godard’s work and the French New Wave—as Richard Linklater’s triumphant plunge into foreign language cinema underlines his reputation as a bold and versatile filmmaker and delivers the one of the best films about a film and filmmaking in general in a very long while.

‘Nouvelle Vague’ streams on Netflix from the 14th of November, and is out in UK cinemas on the 30th of January 2026.

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Redoubtable (2017)

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