A fascinating frisson arises from all this. We’re seeing everything through the professor’s eyes, so Vladimir comes across like a misunderstood dreamboat genius being neglected by his standoffish wife. But he can just as easily be described as a gym-bod literature bro who’s clearly thinking about stepping out on the mentally ill woman who nearly lost her life to postpartum depression while raising their toddler. That makes him sound a whole lot less sympathetic.
But such is the power of the professor’s gaze that we can feel what it’s like to ignore the red flags. The professor is so twitterpated by this guy — I feel like I could recreate his calf muscles from memory after watching the narrator watch him run — that even as you watch her neglect or mess up nearly every aspect of her life, you get it. Considering that this all ends with a man chained to a chair, I wonder just how long Vladimir can make us see things through our heroine’s besotted eyes.
I reviewed episode 3 of Vladimir for Decider.
Tags: decider, TV, TV reviews, vladimir