Shot in black and white, and mostly in French, Nouvelle Vague utterly transports us to this specific time and place, Paris in 1959, where cinema was being transformed by a band of rebellious visionaries. Part of the magic here is the Linklater cast, mainly unknown actors who are dead ringers for their real-life characters. The illusion is both broken and helped along, in the most New Wave way possible, by the characters staring into the camera on their first appearance, with title cards revealing who they are. The result is both hilarious and mesmerizing.
Previously unknown French actor Guillaume Marbeck gives a standout performance as Jean-Luc Godard, perfectly capturing the charisma, insanity, overconfidence, and insecurity driving the mad genius. Zoey Deutch somehow also channels the beauty and the electric charm of Jean Seberg. And Aubry Dullin looks so much like Jean-Paul Belmondo that it is almost spooky. This charismatic troika anchors the film, but dozens and dozens of actors playing life-people help complete the rather extraordinary illusion that we are witnessing the birth of the New Wave firsthand.+
Nouvelle Vague. (L-R) Matthieu Penchinat as Raoul Coutard, Guillaume Marbeck as Jean Luc Godard, Aubry Dullin as Jean-paul Belmondo, and Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg in Nouvelle Vague. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix
“While I may have intellectually understood Linklater before, now I feel like I truly get him on a much deeper level.”
I came of age as a film critic in late-90s Austin, Texas, where Richard Linklater ran the Austin Film Society. The Alamo Drafthouse was just starting up with its first location before it became a franchise. Filmmakers spanning the gamut from Russ Meyer to William Friedkin would just drop by to talk movies. You’d try to go to one of your favorite restaurants, only to find that Mike Judge was shooting a movie there. You’d run into Guillermo Del Toro at a party. Or, hell, even as what Hollywood might call a “nobody,” it was still possible to have a drink or a smoke with the likes of Robert Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino, and have a conversation that would end up influencing their movies. Without any hint of a nod to Austin, in Nouvelle Vague, Linklater has captured this feeling of an emerging and transformative film culture. There can be something magical about a time and place where new ideas are spread when outsiders and rebels decide to buck the orthodoxy.
Linklater is a great filmmaker, though the knock on him has always been that he’s maybe a little too experimental, a little too caught up in characters or vibes, at the expense of plot and drama. So I can think of no better film for him to make than one about Goddard, one of his heroes, espousing exactly the same values. While I may have intellectually understood Linklater before, now I feel like I truly get him on a much deeper level. Ironically, to tell his story, it had to take meticulous planning and work. But it feels like a New Wave film. And the relative lack of drama (after all, we already know the outcome), just evaporates from consideration, because we are so transfixed by the characters and ideas. Linklater was a visionary experimenter in his youth, but now he’s grown into a true master, one able to buck the orthodoxy, not just for its own sake, but to achieve something transcendent.
Nouvelle Vague had its Canadian Premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
"…Linklater was a visionary experimenter in his youth, but now he’s grown into a true master..."
