Film Review: NOUVELLE VAGUE: Guillaume Marbeck is Dynamite in Richard Linklater’s Black and White Masterpiece [NYFF 2025]

Nouvelle Vague Review

Nouvelle Vague (2025) Film Review from the 63rd Annual New York Film Festival, a movie directed by Richard Linklater, written by Holly Gent, Laetitia Masson and Vincent Palmo Jr. and starring Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Adrien Rouyard, Jodie Ruth-Forest, Bruno Dreyfürst, Benjamin Clery, Blaise Pettebone, Paolo Luka-Noe, Jade Phan-Gia and Alix Benezech.

Richard Linklater’s masterpiece, Nouvelle Vague, brings to mind great films like Tim Burton’s gem, Ed Wood, the movie about the director of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Whereas Ed Wood was a bad filmmaker, he had a love for his craft and had a similar style to the French subject of Nouvelle Vague, Jean-Luc Godard. It’s a sheer joy to watch people running around and experimenting with particular styles of film-making and Linklater’s latest captures the creative process of bringing cinematic art to the screen in such a way that it’s clearly one of the year’s very best films.

The casting of Linklater’s newest gem is like a dream come true. Playing Jean-Luc Godard is an actor who is absolutely perfect for the role, Guillaume Marbeck. He is the very definition of “Mr. Cool” with his performance in this movie. Sporting shades and looking like he’s something out of GQ, he has the ability to come up with spontaneous creativity at any given moment. Marbeck’s performance is one for the record books. He is cast opposite Zoey Deutch in a piece of acting that will make viewers realize that she is a true movie star, just in case anyone had doubts before. Deutch plays Jean Seberg, the actress with the short blonde hair who starred in Godard’s 1960 masterpiece, Breathless, which Nouvelle Vague captures the making of in vivid and humorous detail.

Godard, a master of jump cuts and cinematic kinetic energy, believed an artist was either a plagiarist or a genius though that’s not exactly how he puts it in the movie. For him, there was no in-between really when it came to judging a creative artist’s work. Linklater’s picture shows him as a man with inspiration who is clearly telling his own personal story through the character Seberg plays in Breathless. Towards the end, Seberg questions one of Godard’s creative choices and challenges the filmmaker in one of the film’s best scenes.

In this 1959-set film tribute to French New Wave cinema, Aubry Dullin portrays Jean-Paul Belmondo, the man who played opposite the enigmatic and charismatic Seberg in Breathless. Though Seberg had a husband when they were filming Breathless, there was some interesting chemistry between the stars on the set of the film if Nouvelle Vague is any indication. Dullin and Deutch have some fun interactions which make the process of filming the 1960 movie seem so much more enjoyable. Though Seberg wishes the project would come to an end at one point, it seemed she had a blast at certain times while making the 1960 picture.

Bruno Dreyfürst shines as producer, Georges de Beauregard, the man who entrusted Godard with the film project that ultimately must run 90-minutes (or an hour and a half) at the end of the day. There are many humorous scenes where de Beauregard checks in with Godard who is dilly-dallying and not getting work done as quickly as he could be getting it done. Still, there’s no way to argue with the power of the creative process which differs for every artist, whatever the type of art it is that is being created.

Marbeck is a genius in terms of the way he creates this character on-screen. Godard is like the quintessential cinematic master and, as portrayed by Marbeck, it’s easy to admire this man’s sheer audacity in terms of the wild behind-the-scenes process by which he created the definitive movie of its genre. There are plenty of scenes of Breathless being made with characters being filmed running and from behind, etc. It’s a pleasure to look at how a masterpiece was brought to life when so many people surrounding the project weren’t always confident it would become the success it ultimately became. In fact, when Seberg died, she was known as the star of Breathless, above all else.

Deutch’s performance, as Seberg, is at the heart of the movie with Deutch’s tremendously appealing screen presence and her look in various outfits which were demonstrative of the styles that existed in the time period. You’ll examine the outfits from head to toe and enjoy all the style that Deutch puts into her exquisite portrayal of this character. She’s part of an entourage at many times, but there’s no mistaking Seberg was the biggest star on-set at all times during the making of Breathless.

It may be easy to get overwhelmed trying to keep up with the abundance of characters that are featured in Nouvelle Vague, but don’t be fooled! It’s all in good fun! Linklater probably doesn’t want you to memorize all the names of the people shown in the movie, but he most likely wants to point out who they were for more knowledgeable movie-goers. By naming the editors of the 1960 film, for example, when they appear on-screen, it’s just a homage more than anything else. Don’t get distracted by the appearance of new real-life characters who sporadically come and go. It’s a just a fun piece of the wonderful ride that Linklater’s film takes us on.

Nouvelle Vague is one of the best films of the year. You may not come to know everything about the movie Breathless by watching this new picture, but, hand in hand, the two films will complement each other nicely. Deutch and Marbeck would be headed to the Oscars with these performances in a fair and just world because their work is simply that great, but both stars are so perfect in their roles, they make the stellar work they do here seem easy. Marbeck and Deutch are certainly two of the top reasons to see Nouvelle Vague, but if you’ve ever seen or loved a particular movie and wondered how it was made, Linklater’s film is an example of the passion that goes into storytelling and it has many inside jokes that writers, directors or any other type of artist will genuinely appreciate. Don’t miss it!

Rating: 10/10

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