Vladimir is the umpteenth incoming Netflix miniseries adaptation of a novel (in this case of Julia May Jonas). Weariness in starting another new series in a period of great abundance is likely to prevail. Then on the screen the frame squeezes on Rachel Weisz lying on a sofa with a lock in his hand while writing something, his gaze turns on us spectators, with his dark and deep voice starts talking to us (if you look in English obviously) and everything changes.
From that moment on, it will become impossible to get away from his story of a professor of a provincial college who seems to have lost every stimulus, in life, in writing, in loving but who wants to tell us how he managed to recover everything. The protagonist speaks to us, tells us his thoughts for the whole eight episodes for 30 minutes that make up this interesting miniseries, confusing the viewer, offering his perspective on what is happening in his life.
Rachel Weisz is a professor of American female literature, a writer who published a successful novel and then stayed for 15 years with the writer’s block. Married with the dean of faculties, overwhelmed by a scandal and forced to retire, with a daughter who is now away from home and is a lawyer. Our protagonist tells us his world that perhaps exists only in his head but leads us into a mature and intellectually engaging miniseries. Vladimir is portrayed by Leo Woodall, an actor with a non-ephebian, conventional or stereotyped beauty, which exudes masculinity and seduction at every glance. It is enough for our professor to dissolve and let his life advance further every time Vladimir joins his arms behind his head, with an instinctive gesture reminiscent of the animal world.
Cr. Shane Mahood/Netflix © 2025
A little condemned to the roles of beauty and possible, Woodall is here a college professor, a writer, a father, a husband, declined his natural seductive art in a different key than the boy of the past. John Slattery is in this his perfect constriction, mature professor, no longer in the flower of his years, but still able to fascinate physically and intellectually. Vladimir brings us into the relationships between adult people, among the impulses that are often uncontrolled and uncontrollable, but which must deal with conventions, society and the roles that must be covered. Every fantasy of the protagonist is braked by reality, the instinct is dominated by sociality.
The clash between the animal and the passional and the social part, generates elements of irresistible comedy, bringing the public to tifare for this incorrect anti-heroin that, hearing heard, sometimes you give some cigarettes. Inevitably he will come out of comparison with Fleabag and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, being both TV series with women looking in the room and telling the public the misfortunes of their lives. A comparison that does not do well to Vladimir that is a different TV series, with a different irony, less sharp, less deep, more linked to the situations that the protagonist lives. Vladimir is a fun TV series, which especially brings something different to a platform that risks otherwise to flatten on always similar proposals.
L’articolo Vladimir, the review: Rachel Weisz astonishment holds all the miniseries from Dituttounpop.it.
