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.

There are a couple of interesting reversals from the norm at work here. Obviously there’s the fact that both Vladimir and the professor have spouses who more or less endorse them stepping out.. But on top of that, only one of the two marriages involved can even be said to be unhappy. Vladimir and Cynthia are struggling, but John and the narrator are basically rock solid. 

Even through his scandal and suspension, she’s on his side, as both a practical matter and a matter of principle. She and John clearly love each other — and lust for each other, however horny they are for other people — and want each other to be happy. Their marriage is open, not on the rocks. That’s not a dynamic you often see explored in TV shows about extramarital affairs. (The bit where she slashes the deer net protecting his precious vegetable garden out of frustration is a bit more of what you’d expect.)

I reviewed the fourth episode of Vladimir for Decider.

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.

The problem I’m having with Vladimir is that instead of reviewing it, I want to transcribe it. Adapting her own novel, writer-creator Julia May Jonas alternates aphoristic quips, keen interpersonal observations, and steamily subtle come-ons with such alacrity that I don’t think a review can do it justice. People use the phrase “thrill ride” to describe action movies, but with one gleefully surprising line after another, Vladimir earns the title.

I reviewed episode 2 of Vladimir for Decider.