The Wizard of the Kremlin is an exhaustive thriller about post-Soviet Russia that muscular tissues us from the collapse of communism by way of to the conflict in Ukraine. Paul Dano stars as Vadim Baranov, a wily political spin physician (is there every other form?), whereas the plot works onerous to dramatise its payload of info, folding discussions of troll farms and Chechnya amid the discos and limos and smoke-filled rooms.
The title is deceptive: Olivier Assayas’s movie lastly comprises extra trade than wizardry. It’s instructive and environment friendly, like a PowerPoint presentation, however there’s a splash of magic right here nonetheless, second-billed on the credit and principally lurking in the wings. Jude Law’s impersonation of Vladimir Putin is somewhat masterpiece in shades of gray, a stone-cold character research that transforms the movie’s second half. “He’s the man of the hour,” an oligarch quips of the onetime FSB chief, little realising that this charmless little lizard goes to survive all of them.
The oligarchs fatally underestimated Putin, submitting him as a helpful fool or a prepared instrument, and most movie critics, I concern, have equally misjudged Jude Law. He was the fairly face with a brief shelf-life, destined for a post-stardom limbo of tabloid notoriety and daytime telly. Except that the greatest performers wish to upend our expectations and tackle completely different roles. That occurred with Putin, who solely performed dumb and pliant till he secured his massive starring function, and it has additionally occurred with Law, who has at all times been a a lot finer actor than advance phrase would recommend. Producers used to forged him as a poster boy, the cinematic equal of a store window show. But he’s higher now, in careworn center age, when he features extra as a linchpin or a discreet badge of high quality. First-billed or second, he ensures {that a} movie comes residence protected.
The Wizard of the Kremlin is customized from the bestselling novel by Giuliano da Empoli, which was itself loosely based mostly on the life of Vladislav Surko, a would-be Rasputin with a background in pupil theatre and TV promoting. The hassle is that – as performed by Dano – the Wizard looks like a assemble, an exposition machine, and his mellifluous chatter places the story to sleep. Putin at first seems to be like a assemble himself, in that the oligarchs regard him as a handy pawn. And but Law’s pitch-perfect efficiency coaxes out the man’s hidden depths, catches his animal crafty and sense of chippy resentment. Putin gained’t be instructed what to do and nurses each perceived slight. Stalin, he says, ultimately “found an outlet for his fury”. That’s what he’d like as effectively. He needs to settle some scores.
Law’s portrayal of Putin is a far cry from the actor’s pulchritudinous early years, when he performed the spoiled Lord Bosie in Wilde (1997) and gained a Bafta for his flip as heedless, sun-kissed Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). But the man grew too scorching and unfold himself too skinny, whereas the red-tops made hay together with his non-public life (messy divorce, dalliance with the nanny). Law was ultimately in a position to get out from underneath all that. But he has additionally carried it with him, like a scar or a stain, to the level the place it makes him a extra sophisticated display screen presence.
He’s had a fantastic final 10 years; an ongoing inventive renaissance. As hardline Pius XIII in Paolo Sorrentino’s HBO collection The Young Pope (2016), he’s concurrently the celestial sun-child and a creature of the shadows, choosing his method by way of the Vatican in a haze of cigarette smoke and gorging himself on Cherry Coke Zero. As Rory, the Eighties City dealer in Sean Durkin’s The Nest (2021), he’s the polished facade on a condemned property. And as Henry VIII in Karim Ainouz’s flawed Firebrand (2023), he’s a full-blown blasted destroy, a mound of knackered pale flesh. The King has a sagging white arse and an ulcerated left leg. The courtiers wince at the odor and clap handkerchiefs to their noses. That’s a reasonably stark arc; male life in two bookends. From good-looking, carefree Dickie Greenleaf on a seaside to a putrid outdated monarch together with his nightgowns and bedsores.
Henry VIII bears a superficial resemblance to Putin insofar as they’re each unhealthy kings – insecure, paranoid and vulnerable to murdering their nearest and dearest. But that’s so far as the similarities go. Law’s efficiency in Firebrand is a bells-and-whistles spectacular, outsized and grotesque, whereas his contribution to The Wizard of the Kremlin is stealthy and restrained and all the more practical for that. He depicts Putin as restricted, colourless and but fiendishly onerous to pin down. Is he a beta-man who struck fortunate and managed to crown himself king? Or is he an alpha posing as a beta to offer his rivals a false sense of safety? Actors playing true-life historic figures generally tend to grandstand. The identical goes for those that are playing dastardly film villains. Law, although, retains it quiet, nearly humdrum, and makes us lean in and concentrate. He’s a riddle wrapped in a thriller wrapped in a bureaucrat’s go well with.
The Wizard of the Kremlin materialises in cinemas a full month after the Academy Awards ceremony, which is to say that it’s a movie that missed its second and didn’t fairly make the reduce. Probably that’s for the greatest. It’s a good film that covers an excessive amount of floor. It may need labored higher as a TV miniseries. But the present post-Oscar interval – the sudden hush in any case the noise and bling – can also be an opportunity to recollect the nice display screen performances that went unrecognised this year. Eva Victor in Sorry, Baby (2025); Jesse Plemons in Bugonia (2025); Amanda Seyfried in the borderline bonkers The Testament of Ann Lee (2025). All of them have been glorious; in some way none of them have been shortlisted. Law was Oscar-nominated for Ripley after which once more for Cold Mountain (2003). In a simply, first rate world, he’d have picked up his third one for this.
‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ is in cinemas from 17 April
