Vladimir takes us inside a writer’s murky imagination. At a small university, four instructors who also have books to their credit mix it up in a story of desire, longing, and creativity.

Vladimir is the title, but the protagonist is Rachel Weisz. She is referred to as ‘protagonist’ throughout the series. IMDb lists her character name as M, so we’ll go with that. M’s been teaching at the university for 30 years. She wrote one book long ago and hasn’t written since.

M breaks the fourth wall to talk to the camera constantly. She is not a reliable witness to her own life. She tells us her classes are full and her salad is a favorite at a luncheon, but then we see the enrollment numbers and the untouched salad. What can we trust her to say? A key question is can we trust her version of the series ending?

The protagonist and her husband John (John Slattery) have an open marriage. In effect, this means she initiated the idea years ago to have one affair with her department head David (Matt Walsh). John, however, used the opportunity to bed a series of co-eds.

They have been at the college for 30 years and have a grown daughter Sid (Ellen Robertson) who is a lawyer. Adding that up, it places M in her late 50s. She’s feeling unnoticed, lacking agency, and unfulfilled.

John is under scrutiny from the college because women have filed complaints against him. He has a hearing coming up. There’s a recurring theme of generational clash in the series for both M and John. Times have changed and things that were considered normal sexual behavior in the past are no longer acceptable to the younger generation. The students think John’s conduct is reprehensible and find books like “Rebecca” that M teaches disgusting.

Into the plot comes best selling writer Vladimir (Leo Woodall) and his writer wife Cynthia (Jessica Henwick). They join the faculty.

M feels sudden and overwhelming lust, desire, and longing for Vladimir. We see steamy scenes in her imagination as she sexualizes his every feature – his lips, his bare chest, his calf muscles, his arm pits. After each sexual fantasy involving Vladimir, M grabs a pen and starts to write. She writes in longhand on yellow legal pads. (My writing guru Natalie Goldberg would approve.)

This series does have a couple instances of actual sex, but the “steam” in the description of the series as steamy comes straight from M’s fantasy life. Before long she has a thick stack of legal pads and says it’s the best thing she’s ever written. She’s obsessed with getting more and more inspiration from Vladimir until she finally does something crazy.

The series has 8 episodes of about 30 minutes, but it’s not a comedy. It’s more of an I don’t like these people but I can’t stop watching them situation. Rachel Weisz is brilliant in this.

Vladimir is based on a novel by Julia May Jones, who created the series for television. Shari Springer Berman, Francesca Gregorini, and Josephine Bornebusch were the women directors who worked on the series.

You can see this one on Netflix. If you watch it, please share your thoughts in the comments.