The Wizard of the Kremlin, 2025.
Directed by Olivier Assayas.
Starring Paul Dano, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Tom Sturridge, Will Keen, Jeffrey Wright.
SYNOPSIS:
Russia, early 1990s. Amid post-Soviet chaos, a brilliant young man, Vadim Baranov, charts his path. First an artist, then a reality TV producer, he becomes the spin doctor to a rising KGB agent: Vladimir Putin. At the heart of power, Baranov shapes the new Russia, blurring the boundaries between truth and lies, belief and manipulation. Only the magnetic Ksenia is beyond his control, tempting him away from this dangerous game. Years later, after retreating into silence and shrouded in mystery, Baranov finally opens up, revealing the dark secrets of the regime he helped build.
While it may seem as if the likes of Paul Dano as Vadim Baranov (a manipulatively influential political mastermind inspired by Vladislav Surkov, with creative liberties taken) and Jude Law as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in co-writer/director Olivier Assayas’ dialogue heavy Russian political drama The Wizard of the Kremlin (crafting the screenplay alongside Emmanuel Carrère, based on the novel by Giuliano da Empoli) would be an oddly distractive misstep, the real issue is just how dull the proceedings are, with little ambition beyond covering historical events from what the film essentially acknowledges upfront as a fictional character perspective.
In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse and into the 1990s, Vadim (and Russian society) experienced a sense of freedom and democracy for the first time, naturally drawn to the arts. Meeting Alicia Vikander’s Ksenia at a wild party where she is putting on a risque performance art show, Vadim is compelled to tell her that while he doesn’t usually find people interesting, he feels that way about her. They quickly become a pair and invest in the larger Moscow art scene, but when his elite, financially-driven friend Dmitri (Tom Sturridge) returns to his life, Ksenia becomes drawn to that high life and eventually distances herself from Vadim. That turns out to be fine, since Vadim also aims higher, first getting into reality TV production before entering politics, positioning KGB Agent Vladimir Putin, who at this point had never considered the role of Prime Minister, as the perfect candidate to seize control of a nation losing its hold on society. In other words, that democracy isn’t (and didn’t last), with a single man as the architect of a ruthless regime.
Told as a series of flashbacks with Vadim telling this entire story and his personal history to an American professor currently in Moscow (Jeffrey Wright), a superfluous plot device that only exists to reach what is intended to be a rattling climax, when in reality, all it does is further bloat an already stuffed film, the filmmakers here are, for some inexplicable reason, determined to lay it out in the most boring manner possible, usually prioritizing endless dialogue exchanges rather than showing and slashing through to the heart of what this cutthroat political scene is like.
The narrative has positioned Vadim as having no ties to Vladimir Putin in the present day, spilling out his secrets and sins, reflecting on his choices, and hoping to achieve some moral redemption, which isn’t exactly engaging for a variety of reasons. Not only is Paul Dano unforgivably dry in the role, but the structure (which contains several noticeable fade-to-blacks as if they were intended for commercial breaks, as if this were made for TV) and execution admittedly don’t give him much to work with.
A film called The Wizard of the Kremlin should give its titular character more showy action behind the curtain than droning exposition and explanations. It also doesn’t help that Vadim is mostly a fictional character, and that Jude Law as Vladimir Putin’s power surge is more of a draw, even if the stunt casting has its own fair share of flaws. Even with a handful of Russian actors technically here, the film feels more distinctly American or British than anything else (which becomes confounding on another level entirely, given that this is a French production). Despite that, it’s hard to deny that Jude Law delivers an appropriately cold and chilly performance.
There is much talk about the dirty games Vadim plays to curry public favor with Vladimir Putin and keep him untouchable, except it’s not cinematic and often runs through entire stretches of years within 15 minutes. The longer it goes on, the more it feels like an entire Wikipedia page brought to life, which is bizarre in this situation, since it’s a fictional character based on a real person. By the time Ksenia returns to Vadim’s life, he is trying to reckon with his choices, framed as a battle between art and politics that could have been something worth investing in if it weren’t the final 20 minutes. The Wizard of the Kremlin has no drama left. It doesn’t start with much either.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
