Review of Vladimir (2026)

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

And that’s how I ended up watching Vladimir. Once upon a time I saw myself going down a path where I would get a PhD in Comparative Literature, ultimately becoming a professor, and I would pursue my writing career while teaching classes on something like Korean literature.

That never happened, and may never in the future, but that’s what made me want to watch Vladimir. I kind of ignored the actual premise, which led to quite the wild ride throughout the course of this show.

Let’s get into the review!

A college professor, whose husband has sexual assault allegations, eyes another married professor as a romantic prospect.

We don’t know the name of the main character of this series. She’s simply known as M, and she’s a literature and writing professor at an unknown college. We learn from the opening scene that something is going to happen, as the titular Vladimir is tied to a chair and maybe drugged.

In the present day, M goes to the grocery store and finds herself looking at a man, who looks back at her. She then heads to the faculty meeting, where we learn her husband, John, and the former head of the department has been accused of sexually assaulting and taking advantage of students.

Six students have been requesting that he be removed completely from the school, but when M arrives to the meeting, she notices that the grocery store man is here. Turns out he’s Vladimir, the new faculty member in the department. When he touches her arm in passing after the meeting, M sees stars, but then meets his wife and new child.

As the drama continues to grow involving her husband, sucking M further and further into the void of being associated with him—especially when their daughter comes home and discovers what’s happened—M also tries to continue her orbit around Vladimir and his wife, who also teaches at the college.

When his wife starts getting more students support than M, it opens up a jealousy streak. Combine this with trying to figure out how to deal with her husband’s reputation, as well as trying to write her own novel that she thinks might be the next big thing—if only she could find an idea and write it.

The series pretty much grapples with the fallout of the investigation, as well as M’s increasing attraction to Vladimir. It shows how far she’s willing to go with what she wants and her own delusions, even it means ruining someone else’s life in the process.

Overall Thoughts

I thought this was an interesting show, even though I wouldn’t say it was my favorite. M is very clearly spiraling throughout the course of the series, and I would even say that she is a bit self-destructive in her actions.

At the same time she’s not the only character with a grey area of morality in this show, even though we’re in her head and story and see the worst of her in each episode. I thought Rachel Weisz did a great job in that role specifically—even though everyone in general did a great job.

I say watch this one if you’re interested, but it might not be worth a rewatch in my opinion. Maybe someone else will love this show more than I did!

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