31 h. ago
The Wizard of the Kremlin review – Jude Law is Putin in adaptation of Kremlin spin doctor bestseller
Venice film festival The rise of Vladimir Putin, chillingly played by Law, is portrayed through the eyes of a wily insider, but Paul Dano’s protagonist cuts a one-note figureGiuliano da Empoli’s smash-hit satirical novel The Wizard of the Kremlin, about a Putin spin doctor called Vadim Baranov and based on shadowy Russian politician Vladislav Surkov, has now been converted into an exasperatingly laborious and literal-minded movie, burdened with endless dull voiceover. It has been written for the screen by its estimable director Olivier Assayas, working with the formidable author and reportage journalist Emmanuel Carrère; Carrère in fact has a cameo here, playing a supercilious French figure at a raucous Moscow student party in the early 90s, patronisingly informing the young people present that it was the communism they’ve just rejected that really believed in the arts.The action takes us through the 1990s decline of ailing president Boris Yeltsin and the promotion of FSB chief Vlad...
Politics
