Overview

• Linklater reconstructs the 1959 shoot of Jean‑Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle as a faux making‑of focused on youthful creation and early collaborations.
• A young cast embodies New Wave figures, with Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, Aubry Dullin as Jean‑Paul Belmondo, and Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg.
• The film adopts period aesthetics — 4:3 framing, black‑and‑white and visible grain — to echo late‑1950s filmmaking.
• In interviews, Linklater describes directing in France and in French and says he urged actors to forget deference to Godard to avoid hagiography.
• After premiering in competition at Cannes in May, the theatrical rollout in France arrives to a divided critical reception highlighted across major outlets.