The Wizard of the Kremlin
The Spin
Anti-Russia narrative
"The Wizard of the Kremlin" offers a close look at the machinery that turned Russia's brief democratic opening into a modern gangster state. Through its fictional spin doctor, the film turns Putin's rise into a portrait of political manipulation, manufactured reality and power pursued for its own sake. Paul Dano brings a chilling detachment to Baranov, while Jude Law captures Putin's cunning and insecurity. Mordantly witty and unsettling, it draws clear parallels to fascism's rise in the West, showing how authoritarian power takes hold.
Pro-Russia narrative
Assayas' film mistakes a complex political history for a simple story of Putin and his Svengali. Its portrayal of Russia feels conspicuously un-Russian, while Baranov's influence is exaggerated at the expense of Putin's own political skill and the wider forces behind his rise. Jude Law and Paul Dano struggle to make their roles convincing, and the film's English-language setting further weakens its sense of place. For all its ambition, the result is a simplified portrait of Russia better served by the original novel or serious historical scholarship.
Left narrative
Olivier Assayas' adaptation reduces Russian politics to personalities and power games, while treating major atrocities as episodes in Baranov's career rather than confronting their political meaning. By filtering events through Baranov's self-serving account, the film keeps ordinary Russians at the margins, portraying them as passive targets of propaganda rather than political actors with beliefs of their own. Its detached treatment of Putinism ultimately avoids the ideas and social forces that made it possible.
Establishment-critical narrative
"The Wizard of the Kremlin" offers a more nuanced view of Russia than its subject might suggest, presenting Putin and Russian politics through a perspective rarely given space in Western media. The film acknowledges Putin's ruthlessness while complicating familiar narratives about Russian interference in American politics, portraying the social-media campaign as an effort to foment chaos rather than elect a particular candidate. Not pro-Russian, but unusually willing to show the Russian side, it rewards viewers willing to question the standard narrative.
