Review: 'The Wizard of the Kremlin' gives a fictionalized, and surprisingly dull, account of Vladimir Putin's rise
We’re familiar with the philosopher Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil,” which she coined to describe the workaday attitude that could lead to atrocities like the Holocaust.
In “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” a fictionalized take on the rise of Russia’s Vladimir Putin from the view of the political fixer who secured his rise, we’re confronted with something else: The evil of banality — the idea that having no morals and a dull demeanor leads one to horrific actions because the person is to boring to think of doing anything else.
Vadim Baranov — the movie’s fictitious main character, played by Paul Dano — is introduced in retirement, telling his version of Putin’s ascension to an American scholar (Jeffrey Wright) visiting his snowy residence outside Moscow. Dano deploys the same calm monotone portraying Vadim in flashbacks and in narrating the story, and you question whether anything in life could cause Vadim to show an emotion. It’s like watching the HAL 9000 from “2001” in a chunky sweater.
Vadim tells of his youthful days as a theater student, in the says when Mikhail Gorbachev was starting the political changes that would allow the Soviet Union to crumble. Vadim begins a romance with Ksenia (Alicia Vikander), a jaded artist, but their relationship falters when she shows more interest in Vadim’s friend, Dmitri Sidorov (Tom Sturridge), who represents a new breed in Russia: The oligarch, hustling for money through avenues legal and otherwise.
As Gorbachev is succeeded by the unsteady maverick Boris Yeltsin (George Sogis), Vadim becomes a successful producer for Russian state television, devising reality shows that attract eyeballs but not brains. His boss, Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen), is tasked with making Yeltsin seem engaged with Russians — and when that fails, he starts looking around for a new political leader onto whom Boris can lavish his image-making talents.
Boris finds such a candidate in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a former KGB agent who Boris thinks can be molded into the sort of tough, dynamic leader the Russians can get behind. Putin — played by Jude Law in a rich performance that goes beyond caricature — wins his election to prime minister, and Boris tries to warn Vadim of the monster they’ve created. But it’s too late, and Vadim is well on his way to shaping Putin’s public image and getting sucked into his power games.
Director Olivier Assayas, maker of such masterpieces as “Personal Shopper” and “Clouds of Sills Maria,” and co-writer Emmanuel Carrère adapted Giuliano Da Empoli’s 2022 novel, deftly inserting the fictional Vadim into key moments of Putin’s rise to power. Those richly detailed moments, showing everything from Putin’s crackdown on Chechnya to his manipulation of the Sochi Olympics, are the best parts of the movie.
What’s less interesting is Dano, whose strenuous efforts never to raise his voice or betray an emotion work against him and the movie, denying us a chance to understand the mind of someone drawn to power without considering the consequence. He’s an empty shell of a character, and when Law’s Putin finally shows up 44 minutes into the movie, Dano practically disappears — and I didn’t really miss him.
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‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’
★★
Opens Friday, May 15, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language, some sexual material, graphic nudity, violence and a grisly image. Running time: 136 minutes.