Campus tales of power and desire typically produce neat narratives of victimhood: lecherous, middle-aged male professor preys on nubile female student. Vladimir, the Netflix series adapted by Julia May Jonas from her bestselling novel, complicates this gendered phenomenon and its predictable dynamics.
The sleazy professor, John (John Slattery), takes a back seat to his sexually voracious, yet vulnerable, postmenopausal wife (Rachel Weisz) – the unnamed 58-year-old protagonist. The central object of desire is a young man: Vladimir Vladiniski (Leo Woodall), a junior colleague at their small liberal arts college in upstate New York.
