The Hollow Trickery of "The Wizard of the Kremlin"

"Even when applied with the best of intentions, labels can be confusing. The point seems clear enough: a fictitious Yale professor named Lawrence Rowland (Jeffrey Wright) reminisces about a 2019 visit to Russia to the country estate of one Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a former political strategist then living in luxurious isolation with his young daughter. Lawrence had written an article about Vadim, and Vadim, who respects Lawrence as a scholar, now wants to tell him his life story."

A fictional Yale professor recounts a 2019 visit to a Russian estate where a former political strategist offers his life story. The strategist’s past is shown through flashbacks, moving from privileged Soviet origins to opportunistic reinvention after regime change. He navigates Moscow’s cultural scenes, forms relationships with a punk singer, and shifts from theatre work to media and political consulting. Real-world figures and events are woven into the narrative, including an oligarch who later fell out with Putin. The portrayal emphasizes personal motives and dramatic reversals while reducing broader political forces and atrocities to brief, anecdotal moments.

Read at The New Yorker