Early on in Netflix’s new comedy “Vladimir,” Rachel Weisz’s character breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to us viewers, which of course recalls a similar device in “Fleabag.” (Side note: Where have you gone, Phoebe Waller-Bridge? The world needs more from you than playing an “Indiana Jones” sidekick.) But alas, “Vladimir” — debuting this Thursday on Netflix; I’ve seen all eight episodes — is a far cry from that show’s brilliantly incisive portrait of a seriously flawed woman. “Vladimir” conjures up a forbidden romance between Weisz and a younger man along the lines of the Hot Priest in “Fleabag,” but all the yearning and leering take too long to pay off. Saddled with a smug tone and a thin plot riddled with clichés, it’s all buildup and no release.
Weisz’s unnamed character — another direct lift from “Fleabag” — is a college literature professor stuck in a dire midlife crisis. Her students think she’s out of touch, her husband John (“Mad Men” alum John Slattery, on cruise control) is facing disciplinary action for sleeping with students, and her daughter Sid (Ellen Robertson) thinks she’s useless. But she gets a lifeline with the arrival of Vladimir (“The White Lotus” veteran Leo Woodall), a dashing new assistant professor who stirs up long-dormant feelings in her loins. Soon enough, she’s risking everything for a chance to make her spicy fantasies about Vlad come true.
The comedy is drowned out by clichés
Playwright Julia May Jonas adapts her own novel here, and her first time as a TV showrunner is a bit bumpy. (Sharon Horgan, from “Bad Sisters” and “Catastrophe,” is an executive producer.) The series’ eight episodes are around a half-hour each, which makes it nominally a comedy, but it’s not entirely successful on that front. There are a few good gags, like a local spa incessantly texting Rachel Weisz’s character in “yas queen” vernacular, but the show’s portrait of academia is hopelessly stale. A once-promising writer struggling to pen a follow-up to their debut novel, whiny students, clueless administrators… we’ve seen all of this before countless times, and done better.
The tone here is cynical, too, to the point of being curdled. Weisz’s character is surrounded by sleazeballs and idiots, and the show would rather show us another Vlad fantasy than give them any dimension. All those fantasies get repetitive after a while as well, never really heating up to the point of being truly titillating. Her trials border on Rich People Problems at times, with her moping around in her gorgeous rustic home. Plus, the episodes often end on phony Netflix cliffhangers, tailor-made by some unfeeling algorithm to keep you watching… whether you’re actually enjoying it or not.
The characters don’t have the depth to get us invested
Rachel Weisz’s American accent is a struggle; she sounds strangely like she’s doing a Jennifer Coolidge impression at times. (Also: Are we supposed to believe she’s not absolutely gorgeous, at any age?) Leo Woodall makes a perfectly understandable object of desire, lending Vlad a sly smile and a casual swagger. But we’ve seen him play this role before — he literally emerges from water in slow motion just like he did last year in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” — and the writing here doesn’t give him the depth to be much more than an idealized sex object. Most of the “Vladimir” characters are disappointingly flat, actually, only seen through Weisz’s character’s perspective — and with her firmly in antiheroine territory, that leaves us just about no one to relate to or sympathize with on a human level.
Weisz does gets better as her character’s life gets worse, snowballing out of her control. But then the story takes a pair of completely bonkers turns — one that’s annoyingly foreshadowed in the opening minutes — and then (even worse) instantly undoes them, revealing them to be just more phony cliffhangers. It’s as if Jonas wanted to be edgy and daring, but lacked the spine to truly follow through. There is a kernel of an intriguing story in here somewhere, underneath all the well-worn clichés. But in the end, it all needs a serious rewrite.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Netflix’s “Vladimir” promises a steamy forbidden romance, but it fails to deliver, bogged down by curdled cynicism and tired clichés.
All eight episodes of “Vladimir” are now streaming on Netflix; if you’ve already started your binge, give it a grade in our poll, and let us know what you think in a comment below.