Two years ago, Sebastian Stan headlined a film about U.S. President Donald Trump that chronicled the controversial figure’s rise to power and malevolence under the watchful guise and with the support of an enigmatic figure in the shadows, Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn. Now, filmmaker Olivier Assayas tells a similar story of a dictator’s rise to power in The Wizard of the Kremlin, an unsettlingly insightful yet dense and overly long examination of 21st century tyranny.
Based on the book of the same name by Giuliano da Empoli, The Wizard of the Kremlin stars Paul Dano as Vadim Baranov, the retired media advisor of Vladimir Putin, who, in an interview with a journalist (Jeffrey Wright), looks back on his career. Through flashbacks, the film depicts how Baranov overcomes his meager beginnings when he helps an unassuming KGB officer named Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) on a path to the apex of Russian politics.
The Wizard of the Kremlin has been billed as a film about Vladimir Putin, but it is far more a compelling, tragic, disturbing, and even pathetic tale of his media guru Vadim Baranov, a fictionalized version of the real-life Vladisklav Surkov. A beginning of the film that depicts Baranov’s girlfriend Ksenia (Alicia Vikander) leaving him for a man with more money and personality (Tom Sturridge) damningly contextualizes its lead character as an eventual tyrant whose villainous origins lie in the most pitiful of insecurities. In using this split as the instigation for a decades-long pursuit of ‘you were wrong about me’ revenge, Assayas connects all manner of injustice, violence, and deception in the modern world to a seemingly innocuous breakup and, in doing so, makes already unsettling historical events all the more disturbing.
Baranov uses the devastation caused by the breakup as motivation. Dano’s character teams up with Boris Berezovsky, an oligarch in charge of Russia’s largest television network, to find a reliable and amenable opponent to Russia’s president Boris Yeltsin. They find this person in the form of Vladimir Putin, who personifies the age-old adage ‘don’t let the wolf in the henhouse’ as he quickly disposes of Berezovsky and takes control of his political destiny.
While Dano’s flat and, at times, unintentionally funny performance as the titular wizard fails to infuse the film with much energy, Law’s entrance as Putin decidedly improves matters. The charming English heartthrob known for romantic and sexually appealing performances in films like The Holiday, Alfie, Closer, and Cold Mountain wouldn’t be the first name that comes to mind to embody Vladmir Putin, and yet he approaches an undeniably complex role with delectable intrigue. Similar to Stan’s portrayal as Trump in The Apprentice, Law doesn’t always seem or appear like the Putin we all know from the media, but he uncannily captures the Russian leader’s mannerisms, composure, tone, odd humor, and resentment. As Baranov lurks in the shadows and his psychology largely remains a mystery to the audience, Putin is far more of an open book, in turn exposing some of the psychological underpinnings of an authoritarian in the truest sense of the word.
Anchored by Law’s phenomenal performance, The Wizard of the Kremlin also serves as an account of recent Russian history, revealing the extent to which Putin and Baranov had their hands in a myriad of controversies. There is a caveat to this, which is that the film doesn’t try to hide the fact that elements of the story are fictionalized. However, one with even a cursory understanding of the war in Ukraine, interference in U.S. elections, spread of misinformation, and more will know that Assayas’ film runs disturbingly close to reality.
In examining Putin and Baranov’s roles in these issues, the film makes for compelling and relevant viewing. Although Dano and Law are afforded with cutting dialogue about political ideologies and worldviews to deliver, the story surrounding them doesn’t quite pack the intensity or urgency needed to render it effective as both a political drama and political thriller. With a bulky runtime of 136 minutes, The Wizard of the Kremlin overstays its welcome and would have benefitted from a sharper edit to correct for sluggish pacing. Perhaps this issue would have been easier to overlook had Law, by far the film’s standout element, played a larger on-screen role, but the decision to center Dano’s far less interesting Baranov as the protagonist often leaves the movie crying out for the burst of tension and energy that Law brings.
After The Apprentice a few years ago, The Wizard of the Kremlin once again shows that the modern movie industry is unafraid of making political biopics about leaders who are still alive. In continuing this trend, filmmaker Olivier Assayas creates a thought-provoking and relevant film, anchored by a stellar turn from Jude Law and undermined only by Dano’s unusual deadpan performance and overly slow pacing. Independent of its filmmaking stumbles, however, the film makes for necessary viewing in detailing two of the masterminds behind a contemporary society dominated by misinformation in which the line between truth and lies grows ever blurrier.
