“I promise I won’t judge you,” says an unnamed Protagonist (Rachel Weisz) in Netflix’ new comedy series Vladimir. She says this to her adult child Sid (Ellen Robertson), who admits to having a one night stand. In many ways, a lot of these characters are ripe for judgment, especially the Protagonist’s husband John (John Slattery). A professor, John is facing allegations for taking advantage of his students and the Protagonist may be complicit. Amidst this scandal, the Protagonist, also an English professor in a college town, notices new changes in the school’s faculty. Particularly, a novelist, the ridiculously named Vladimir Vladinsky (Leo Woodall) is coming to teach some classes. Despite him being married to Cynthia (Jessica Henwick), the Protagonist catches feelings, these jumbled emotions making her act quite erratically.

Julia May Jonas uses her novel with the same title from 2022 as the source material for this miniseries. It’s basically Netflix’ business model these past months to create their content from a reputedly pulpy book. The hook here, of course, is an older female protagonist’s unrequited feelings for a much younger man. But it also gives enough spotlight to the story’s B-plot about a family reeling after a man takes advantage of women. John and the Protagonist are each other’s foils, his bad behaviour reflecting the desires she can’t verbalize. Or at least, she can’t publicly verbalize them, instead airing out her emotions by breaking the fourth wall. And for obvious reasons, Sid’s presence here points to the fact that young people have their flaws too. The crew, by the way, filmed Vladimir in my old campus and kudos to them for making it look green.

Every media consumer knows that adapting page to screen isn’t easy and Vladimir comes with similar problems. First person narration reads great on the page and it feels that way ever since Ancient Greeks or whatever. Not every miniseries or TV show can do it and it feels like Fleabag perfected breaking the fourth wall. This miniseries, in comparison, falls so short that it feels like we need to lay off narrators for a while. Also, as much as I like Doechii and tolerate Lizzo, miniseries need better, more deep cut needle drops. On another note, I usually like Rachel Weisz when she’s using her lower register even while playing women going through crises. The scenes, however, when she’s breaking the fourth walls seems like she’s doing the most (derogatory). Some of her decisions feel distracting but at least she’s great when she’s volleying off other actors, especially Woodall.

But even in imperfectly depicting a woman in conflict against a society, Vladimir showcases a great character study. Women and queer people in my generation or younger have a conception of womanhood rebelling against power dynamics. In contrast, this story is decidedly Gen-X even as it falls within the ‘be woman do crime’ sub genre. A female character doing socially unacceptable things is acceptable within contemporary tastes but always within a certain guideline. God forbid a woman can’t articulate her desires nor not know what she wants as the Protagonist does. Also, younger viewers prefer fictional characters to have deal breakers but that’s not like real life’s complex relationships. These characters forgive those who tresspass against them just like, again, people in real life do.

Netflix is the only place to watch miniseries like Vladimir.