Venice Film Festival 2025: Review of the movie The Wizard of Kremlin

What appears to be the story of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) transforms instead into the ordeal experienced by his collaborator, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), an aspiring actor in his twenties who later becomes the leader's advisor. It is Baranov – along with state television executive Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen) – who convinces an inexperienced Putin – director of Russian secret services – to run for president after Yeltsin's political downfall. No one, however, would have predicted that Putin, from an ordinary ruler, would become a dictator capable of eliminating his detractors. 

"The Kremlin's Magician" – directed by Olivier Assayas and based on the novel by Giuliano Da Empoli – suffers from focusing for over an hour on young Baranov's life, from his theatrical aspirations to his love story with Ksenia (Alicia Vikander). This approach limits interest in the film's principal figure, focusing instead on less impactful aspects. When Putin deports his electoral opponent Dmitri Sidorov (Tom Sturridge) to Siberia, it is on this and other crimes that the spotlight should be directed. Straying too far from the methods by which he built his dictatorial structure risks making the film feel like a documentary, an impression reinforced by Baranov's persistent voiceover.

All the premises for depicting the bloody labyrinths of power were present, but Assayas dilutes them in a centrifugal manner, dispersing forces that could have been represented with vehemence, from the war in Crimea to the annexation of Donbass. And the final plot twist only fuels the sense of a missed opportunity: it unfolds while Putin continues his political life which, as portrayed in the film, begins every day in early afternoon.