{"id":323711,"date":"2026-03-05T20:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/323711\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T20:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:13:17","slug":"rachel-weisz-netflix-comedy-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/323711\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Weisz Netflix Comedy Falls Short"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen attached to a story about sexually indiscreet academics of fine literature, the name \u201cVladimir<\/a>\u201d automatically invokes the author Nabokov. (Problematic age gaps in teacher-student relationships recall \u201cLolita,\u201d though a closer analog might be the campus satire \u201cPnin.\u201d) But when attached to a television show about an unnamed, unreliable narrator (Rachel Weisz<\/a>) directly addressing the camera, another influence comes to the fore: \u201cFleabag,\u201d in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge elevated breaking the fourth wall into an art form.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat one-woman show turned Emmy magnet is a high bar to set for oneself, and in adapting her own debut novel as a Netflix limited series, creator Julia May Jonas doesn\u2019t clear it. \u201cVladimir\u201d takes on a host of knotty issues, from changing sexual mores to aging to infidelity to \u2014\u00a0imagine the loudest sigh ever sighed \u2014 cancel culture. Given that self-assigned degree of difficulty, \u201cVladimir\u201d is far from the catastrophe it could easily be in clumsier hands. But while Weisz is reliably magnetic and the eight episodes often amusing as farce, \u201cVladimir\u201d is an imperfect translation of the novel\u2019s hothouse subjectivity to TV\u2019s three-dimensional space, where canvases for projection and conduits for desire take the form of flesh-and-blood human beings. The ensuing issues with casting and pacing aren\u2019t fatal, but they are significant.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeisz\u2019s antiheroine is a middle-aged professor with chronic writer\u2019s block and mounting insecurity about her potential irrelevance, both erotic and pedagogical. Having gone decades without producing a follow-up to her breakout book, she\u2019s settled for lecturing rapt undergrads on why Daphne du Maurier\u2019s \u201cRebecca\u201d is akin to Instagram-stalking an ex. With her husband John (John Slattery, TV\u2019s go-to silver fox for a reason) facing a Title IX hearing for a series of affairs with younger pupils, our protagonist could use a distraction. Lucky for her, one walks into a faculty meeting: the titular Vladimir (Leo Woodall<\/a>), a new, younger colleague whose idea of stress relief is going to the gym \u2014\u00a0and it shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tLike the novel, \u201cVladimir\u201d begins with a flash-forward to its namesake tied to a chair. (The in medias res opening closely followed by a rewind is vastly overused these days, but \u201cVladimir\u201d comes by this one honestly.) Unlike the novel, \u201cVladimir\u201d shows the reality bracketing the Weisz character\u2019s obsessive, intrusive fantasies about her crush. Or at least, some of it: producing directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini firmly situate us in the lustful professor\u2019s point of view through constant cutaways that detail exactly what she\u2019d like to do with Vladimir in breathless close-ups and swooning slow motion. Exactly how much of these sequences are inspired by actual chemistry is left deliberately ambiguous, to the point where she eventually asks Vladimir outright if she made it all up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the time that question is posed, however, the device has worn out its welcome, reiterating the basic fact of the academic\u2019s desire over and over again without complications or narrative advancement. As the story inches toward John\u2019s hearing and the accompanying judgement on whether what was once a routine, consensual practice is now an unforgivable abuse of power, Weisz\u2019s reveries start to feel like padding where they should be an organizing principle. Some of the time could be better spent on other characters: the central couple\u2019s daughter Sid (Ellen Robertson) remains stubbornly underdeveloped, a collection of stereotypes about sensitive, gender-bending youths and convenient plot shortcuts. (John\u2019s accusers are painted with a similarly broad brush, undercutting nuance in favor of generational satire.) Sid is a lawyer, which spares \u201cVladimir\u201d the need to introduce someone new to represent John in his de facto trial.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cVladimir\u201d also waits far too long to unpack the mechanics of what our narrator calls \u201can open marriage, but without all the awful communication.\u201d This \u201carrangement\u201d is alluded to early on, to explain that John\u2019s dalliances are not exactly the betrayals they appear to be. But \u201cVladimir\u201d takes its time to reveal how and when the other half of John\u2019s marriage has taken advantage of these liberties in the past. Perhaps the intent is to cultivate suspense, yet the effect is a frustrating vagueness around the base conditions for the show\u2019s central infatuation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese hiccups could be hand-waved if Woodall and Weisz, also an executive producer, slotted more neatly into the novel\u2019s assigned roles. \u201cIt has recently come to my attention that I may never again have power over another human being,\u201d our narrator explains by way of introduction. It\u2019s one thing to read this on the page; it\u2019s another to see the statement emerge from the mouth of a performer very much in possession of the seductive pull her character fears is in her past. To put this as respectfully as I can: I don\u2019t believe Rachel Weisz would or should feel any ambiguity over whether Vladimir is out of her league! Weisz showed her range wonderfully<\/a> as identical twins in Cronenberg remake \u201cDead Ringers,\u201d her last TV role. \u201cVladimir\u201d may push her powers of illusion a hair too far to serve the story.<\/p>\n

\n\tWoodall, too, reads as out of place, if not as crucially. As on \u201cThe White Lotus\u201d and \u201cOne Day,\u201d the up-and-coming actor projects enough charm and bravado to justify his coworker\u2019s attraction \u2014 just not the intellectualism one associates with a hot-shot scholar. Vladimir is also no boy toy. He\u2019s married to another writer, Cynthia (Jessica Henwick), with whom he shares a three-year-old daughter. The 29-year-old Woodall slots easily into Weisz\u2019s flagrant objectification, yet less so into the real person (who, it\u2019s implied, is using the flirtation as an easy escape from his own complicated home life) beneath the fantasy. Though that dissonance is somewhat purposeful; it\u2019s not like \u201cVladimir\u201d is told from the perspective of someone who\u2019s interested in Vladimir as more than a means for her own satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSatisfaction\u201d here doesn\u2019t just mean getting off. More than masturbatory daydreams, Vladimir inspires our heroine to write with abandon, ignoring professional and personal obligations in service to her muse. To \u201cVladimir,\u201d desire is a creative act, a thesis it shares with the profoundly niche Joey Soloway series \u201cI Love Dick<\/a>,\u201d from 2017. \u201cI Love Dick,\u201d too, adapts a novel about the self-actualizing power of a woman over 40 abjecting herself before her own appetites. It\u2019s an earthier, more holistically sensual show than \u201cVladimir,\u201d which soundtracks Weisz\u2019s awakening to incongruous pop music that simplifies a complicated subject. (The final sync is a particularly poor note to go out on.) Weisz aces the slapstick comedy of being hot and bothered in an inappropriate setting. But if \u201cVladimir\u201d wants to prove erotic fixation can lead to artistic transcendence, it never fully walks the walk.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll eight episodes of \u201cVladimir\u201d are now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When attached to a story about sexually indiscreet academics of fine literature, the name \u201cVladimir\u201d automatically invokes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,4361,74676,411,160471],"class_list":["post-323711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-leo-woodall","tag-rachel-weisz","tag-tv","tag-vladimir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}