This rollicking comedy drama about sex, obsession and the generation gap never plays it safe. There are frequent fantasy sequences – many of them steamy – and the fourth wall is obliterated from the start. Rachel Weisz’s unnamed protagonist doesn’t just quip to the camera like Phoebe-Waller Bridge in Fleabag; she turns us into her confidante and co-conspirator. As her life spirals into chaos and potential calamity over eight pacy episodes, there’s a lot to unpack – not least her growing infatuation with a dashing younger man.
Weisz’s character has a charmed life but cracks are beginning to show. She’s a respected English literature professor at a liberal college in an affluent New England town where the local “boulangerie” sells chocolate log cakes for $48. However, her professional reputation has been dented by the sexual escapades of her academic husband John (John Slattery) who’s been suspended for sleeping with several students.
His affairs were consensual and happened 10 years ago, but he’s being held to account now for abusing his power. The protagonist’s refusal to condemn his behaviour, at least publicly, upsets some of her Gen Z students and presents her colleagues with a problem. They may agree that his topsy-turvy trysts took place “at a different time” – pre-#MeToo, essentially – but they need to be seen doing the right thing in the current climate.
The couple have a vague arrangement that they can’t quite bring themselves to call an open marriage, but their attachment to one another seems closer to routine than love. Her career is also stuck in stasis. She wrote a highly successful novel many years ago but has since been thwarted by writer’s block. Now, well into middle age with a grown-up daughter (Ellen Robertson) whom she proudly announces as “a bisexual woman”, she’s worried she’s losing her sexual allure. We find out later that she’s not above using this to her advantage.
Into this psychological tinderbox swaggers Vladimir (Leo Woodall), a hotshot novelist who’s taken a teaching job at the college. It’s lust at first sight for the protagonist, but as Vladimir flatters her by showing an interest in her novel, she becomes emotionally invested as well. Soon she’s befriending his brittle wife Cynthia (Jessica Henwick) in a bid to ease her conscience and get closer to the object of her obsession.
Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall in ‘Vladimir’. CREDIT: Netflix
Adapted by Julia May Jonas from her own 2022 novel, Vladimir‘s zingy irreverence and heightened tone is jolting at first but soon becomes infectious. Weisz plays her frenetic role with gusto, while Woodall is suave and charming as Vladimir, a character whose inscrutability confuses the protagonist but also allows her to project her fantasies onto him. Does he actually want to be seduced, or is he just a massive flirt? This show keeps us guessing as it pings between pulpy plot twists and amusing passive aggressive encounters between Weisz’s increasingly unhinged professor and her smug, virtue-signalling colleagues.
The final episode ties up certain plot strands a little too neatly, but Weisz’s parting shot is suitably ambiguous and witty. You’ll end the series wondering whether you should have been rooting for her, but feeling glad that you did. Well, maybe. Vladimir is far too smart to leave us with any easy answers.
‘Vladimir’ is streaming on Netflix now
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