RICHARD’S BLOG

recent posts

I became a playwright in 1996, having been an avid theatregoer throughout my life (averaging around 120 plays a year – watching, not writing!) I semi-retired from my day job shortly thereafter and for the next 25 years I worked only part-time, allowing me time to write. I ventured briefly into the world of television and wrote a couple of screenplays, although this pretty much came to nothing, except for TAPS making a short film of one of my scripts starring (a virtually unknown) Benedict Cumberbatch and Georgia Mackenzie, which was cool, and sufficient to get me BAFTA membership. Since the pandemic, theatre in the UK has never really found its way back to what it used to be, and so my attention has drifted more towards film. I am now fully retired from my day job and whilst I still visit the theatre two or three times a month, I now watch upwards of 500 films a year (crazy, but true!) Since I watch so many films and can write, I decided to create a blog – it seemed a very 21st-Century thing to do.
REVIEW: The Wizard of the Kremlin ★★★☆☆

REVIEW: The Wizard of the Kremlin ★★★☆☆

The Wizard of the Kremlin is a 2025 English-language political satire directed by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas about Russian politics after the Soviet era! Assayas co-wrote the screenplay with Emmanuel Carrère, based on the 2022 novel by Giuliano da Empoli. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last August (where it was nominated for the Golden Lion) and was released in the UK on 17 April.

In the early 1990s, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) is a young artist, apparently enjoying the new-found freedoms of post-Soviet Russia, whilst secretly harbouring ambitions to take his share of the new opportunities. His political acumen is noticed by media magnate Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen), who takes him under his wing, however to Baranov, Berezovsky is just a stepping stone to Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) whose star is very much in the ascendancy.

This is the spine-chilling story of Putin’s rise to power through the lens of Baranov, a combination of Machiavelli and Rasputin, apparently based on real-life shadowy Russian politician Vladislav Surkov. The journey of Baranov from young artist through small-time government official to Putin’s ruthless and amoral right-hand-man ought to be spellbinding, but sadly Dano’s performance is completely lack-lustre. His steadily paced sing-song delivery frankly becomes annoying and what should be mesmeric becomes simply dreary. It is hard to say whether this is poor acting or poor direction, but something has gone badly wrong here.

The film is saved, however, by a wonderful performance from Law as Putin, who is utterly convincing. His Putin mannerisms, the thin smile, the cursory handshake, and especially the wince of disgust at weakness and disloyalty, are just right.

Ultimately, I suspect that dogged adherence to the novel (which I have not read) may have ruined what could have been a wonderful film. A little more comedy would have injected some much-needed light and shade, and could have given us a considerably more entertaining affair; perhaps in the hands of Armando Iannucci, we would have had The Death of Stalin updated for a new tyrant. As it is, The Wizard of the Kremlin just fails to deliver on a very promising premise.

Posted in

Leave a comment