A Putin Satire That Somehow Works

The film delays showing Vladimir Putin for the first part, focusing instead on the country he inherited and on what was lost after the 1990s. Jude Law portrays Putin with a constant grimness and restrained delivery, creating a compelling presence even when he is mostly backgrounded. The central figure is Vadim Baranov, inspired by Vladislav Surkov, whose career spans roughly thirty years from young artist to political kingmaker and later outcast. The story is structured through nested flashbacks, beginning with Rowland, a writer seeking the exiled Baranov, who is summoned to hear his life story. Baranov’s account covers the final months of Soviet rule, Boris Yeltsin’s emergence and decline, and Baranov’s shifting roles from TV executive to government adviser.

"Vladimir Putin does not appear for the first 45 minutes of The Wizard of the Kremlin, an odd choice for a satirical film entirely about him. His presence looms in the background-the future Russian premier is jokingly referred to as "the Tsar" by the narrators-yet the director, Olivier Assayas, seems more interested in explaining the strange country Putin inherited, at least initially. Keeping Putin off-screen for a while makes perfect storytelling sense: The film, an adaptation of a 2022 novel of the same name, aims to understand how post-Soviet Russia's brief cosmopolitan boom in the 1990s was eventually quashed under Putin's rule, so it spends time illustrating what will be lost."

"Jude Law plays Putin in an extraordinary performance; wearing a near-permanent grimace and barely ever raising his voice, he's a nonetheless transfixing screen presence. Yet The Wizard of the Kremlin's titular role refers not to him, but to Vadim Baranov (played by Paul Dano). Inspired by Putin's former aide Vladislav Surkov, Baranov experiences a similar rise and fall over a 30-year period, up to the present day; he develops from an energetic young artist into a political kingmaker and, eventually, an outcast. The movie's weakness, however, is that it's focused on Putin's unknowability-yet he's accessible only through Baranov, who is far less engaging."

"The script, co-written by Assayas and the French novelist Emmanuel Carrère, is a series of nesting flashbacks initially told through the eyes of Rowland (Jeffrey Wright), a writer in search of the now-exiled Baranov. Rowland is summoned to Baranov's dacha to hear his life story, and Dano takes over the narration duties to lay out the final months of Soviet Russia; the emergence and downfall of Putin's presidential predecessor,Boris Yeltsin; and Baranov's machinations as a TV executive turned government adviser. Dano brings an intentiona"

Read at The Atlantic