Vladimir Reviews: Critics Compare Rachel Weisz’s Netflix Series To Fleabag

Described by one critic as “Fleabag for 50-somethings”, Netflix’s steamy new comedy-drama, Vladimir, looks set to become your new binge-watch obsession.

Starring Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall, Vladimir follows a fourth wall-breaking narrator as she becomes obsessed with her young, attractive colleague while also trying to manage her husband’s sexual misconduct allegations in the workplace.

Set in the world of academia, Vladimir’s unpicking of cancel culture and middle-aged desire is already sparking debate, with some critics loving the depiction of the complexities of the situation and others struggling with the show’s “unlikeable protagonist” and apparently shallow exploration of a serious subject.

If you’re looking for something spicy and addictive to stream this week, here’s everything the critics have been saying about Vladimir and why it deserves a spot on your Netflix watchlist…

“Vladimir is that rare visitor to the screen – proper television for proper grownups. The eight-part adaptation of Julia May Jonas’s provocative 2022 debut novel of the same name has not shied away from the properties that made the book great – black comedy, bleak insight, evisceration of accepted pieties – and fitted them perfectly to the new form.

“The screenwriter, Jeanie Bergen, who has obviously absorbed the book into her very bones, retains all of Jonas’s wit, confidence and, crucially, her willingness to dwell in grey areas and luxuriate in the complexities that govern life in middle age.”

“It’s not flattering and it’s certainly not nice, but it feels honest and maybe even – oh, let’s just admit it – relatable.

“Dig into the heart of your deepest desire, Vladimir argues, and you’ll find nothing more or less than your own face staring right back at you.”

“Weisz is tremendously funny as she navigates this crush while her life unravels. The style of the series takes a bit of getting used to – it’s fourth-wall breaking, with Weisz addressing the camera throughout and speaking in sometimes quite stilted, stagey language. But before long you fall into the rhythm of it. Think of it as Fleabag for 50-somethings.”

“Why shouldn’t we see a story through the eyes of a chaotic and flawed woman? It’s still quite rare, even in 2026, for female anti-heroes to be afforded the same treatment as their male counterparts, decidedly doing away with any need to make them palatable, or to give you a driving reason to root for them. She’s fun to watch, and that should be enough.”

“Weisz meanwhile, is a terrific actor (even if her American accent occasionally hits those Rs like a back wheel bumping the curb when parking) and the chemistry with Vladimir feels, rightly, elliptical.

“But she is an unlikeable protagonist – her decision-making at times even sociopathic – and the tone of the show, its frequent collapse of the fourth wall, can be grating. Your tolerance for that device might correlate with your judgment of the show’s rather unhinged ending.”

“Vladimir takes on a host of knotty issues, from changing sexual mores to aging to infidelity to – imagine the loudest sigh ever sighed – cancel culture. Given that self-assigned degree of difficulty, Vladimir is far from the catastrophe it could easily be in clumsier hands.

“But while Weisz is reliably magnetic and the eight episodes often amusing as farce, Vladimir is an imperfect translation of the novel’s hothouse subjectivity to TV’s three-dimensional space, where canvases for projection and conduits for desire take the form of flesh-and-blood human beings.

“Come for the steamy obsession and stay for everything else. Rachel Weisz shows her onscreen mastery in this completely unexpected Netflix show that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be.”

“Almost all of the eight episodes feature a hot and heavy sex scene, and showrunner (and original author) Julia May Jonas has spectacularly nailed the spice. Nothing is gratuitous or unnecessary, and desires are explicitly explored with nothing off-limits.”

“As far as darkness goes, Vladimir is little more than a run-of-the-mill narcissist, not asking for the protagonist’s book when she requests to read his. However, most narcissists are significantly more charming, whereas Vlad’s cool guy personality is more ‘meh’.”

“Like the film After the Hunt with Julia Roberts, Vladimir looks at campus misconduct in the later #MeToo era. But it plays the goings-on as dark comedy rather than psychological drama.

“Consider its tongue firmly in its cheek, which works sometimes but on other occasions can be confusing. “

“Vladimir raises interesting, timely questions about power, feminism, and the #MeToo movement, but it stops short of engaging with them in a meaningful way. Because it doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to say about the topics, it ends up not saying much at all, the commentary staying close to the surface rather than diving deep into the intricacies. It revels in its main character being messy and subversive, but after all is said and done, it’s more thematically clean and conventional than it wants to be.”

“Ms. Weisz never seems quite comfortable as the so-called M. And only if she were would the story about inappropriate lust between students and faculty – and faculty and faculty – be as amusing as she has to pretend it is.”

“Vladimir offers viewers a front-row seat to its protagonist’s frantic inner monologue by having her deliver her thoughts straight to camera. Look, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag doesn’t own the art of fourth-wall breaking, but it’s impossible not to see its influence in the professor’s asides. If you’re going to use a technique that’s almost synonymous with another TV show about a spiraling, complicated, unnamed woman, you’d better bring something new to it.

“To its credit, Vladimir tries, but doesn’t quite pull it off.”

All eight episodes of Vladimir are now streaming on Netflix.