Review: The Wizard Of The Kremlin

Image courtesy of Gaumont.

The latest film from the great Olivier Assayas is a political thriller that operates in the same vein as "The Last King of Scotland" in that it centers around a fictional character - although the one played by Paul Dano here is inspired somewhat by Vladislav Surkov, a helper to various Russian oligarchs - who is in the orbit of a sinister political figure (in this case, Vladimir Putin, portrayed in the film by Jude Law). The only difference is that Dano's character is nearly as corrupt as the man for whom he works.

The wraparound story in the picture involves a writer, Rowland (Jeffrey Wright), who is in Russia in 2019 to research the author Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of the dystopian novel "We." He is sent a note by Dano's Vadim Baranov, who has a memento of Zamyatin's that he wants to show him. But, of course, this is not the purpose of the visit.

Baranov regales Rowland with his story about how he started as a writer of avant garde theater and then became a Russian state newsman before getting drawn into Putin's orbit by oligarch Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen), with whom Baranov was familiar. At a party in the early 1990s, Baranov also meets the woman - Ksenia (Alicia Vikander) - who will be his on-again, off-again paramour. 

The picture chronicles the decline of Boris Yeltsin's health and his choice of former KGB officer Putin, who in the film is found languishing in the KGB's successor agency, to lead the country. As played by Law, Putin is a man who is always scheming and finds that projecting strength is more important than actually delivering for the Russian people. He's also a bit paranoid.

"The Wizard of the Kremlin" is an often fascinating - if somewhat condensed - version of one of the most catastrophic geopolitical events of the 21st century - Russian's newfound freedom as a democracy in the 1990s quickly devolving into an authoritarian state led by a corrupt and cruel man who remade the country in his own image.

Assayas has deftly brought captured geopolitical moments in the past - his chronicle of Carlos the Jackal in 2010's "Carlos" is probably his masterpiece, while 2012's "Something in the Air" was an engrossing tale set against the backdrop of France's student revolution in the 1960s and 1970s and his Cuban spy movie "Wasp Network" was also memorable. "The Wizard of the Kremlin" may not have been greeted with the same lauds as some of those previous films, but it's a very worthwhile addition to his oeuvre.

Law captures the mannerisms and look of Putin and is very good here, but Dano's soft-spoken portrayal is the performance that carries the film. While the former is a man who feels the need to speak loudly and announce himself in brutish fashion, the latter is comfortable talking quietly because he knows he has power and feels no need to flaunt it.

Our current political crisis - and the U.S. president at the center of it - is never mentioned, but Russia's aggression against Ukraine (here during the War of Crimea) is present, and while the 2016 election is never referenced, Russia's data centers populated by those sending out misinformation - spreading anti-vax views, for example - make an appearance. This is a chilling and engrossing movie about how easily a society can unravel when it falls into the wrong hands.