It’s fascinating and funny to watch sex, not even the reality of it but the imagined promise of it, turn the narrator into the proverbial Absent-Minded Professor. She’s a fine educator by all accounts, and a fine writer too. But she neglects her duties, her students, her own standards, and basic professional due diligence in her pursuit of falling into Vladimir’s loving, muscle-corded arms.
And let’s say you sympathize with her as both a sexual being as an educator of students who are, ultimately, sexual beings themselves. Maybe you’re thinking “How dare they make an example of this woman for saying the embraces in Edith Wharton novels are a metaphor for the female anatomy or whatever? They are! Grow up!” Maybe you’re think it’s like the misleadingly edited takedown in Tàr, in other words, a work that looms large over this one despite its much different, more dour tone.
But it’s about more than that, isn’t it? Her egregious apology to Lila, her neglect of a student she’s advising, her theft of a scholarship file — there’s no possible pedagogical or sociopolitical justification for any of that. And her continued support of John neglects the fact that conduct may be legal and even fully consensual, but still sleazy and stupid and unbecoming of an educator. Ironically, understanding this requires the kind of nuance she asks of the students she wants to forgive her.
I reviewed episode 5 of Vladimir for Decider.
Tags: decider, TV, TV reviews, vladimir