The official synopsis for Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague describes it as “the story of Godard making Breathless, told in the style and spirit in which Godard made Breathless.”

It’s a catchy pitch but also a bit deceiving. Godard’s 1960 film broke all sorts of narrative and stylistic conventions, writing its own rules about what a movie could do and paving the way for modern cinema as we know it. Linklater’s charming and well-researched homage is much more traditional: Told in a linear fashion, shot with a sizeable crew, featuring actors who look and act like the famous people they’re playing, relying on tons of VFX shots to recreate Paris at the time, it’s a far cry from the style of Godard. And yet it does an impressive job capturing the spirit of the man at work, highlighting what it took — and often didn’t take...