Netflix’s New Erotic Thriller Is The Perfect Unreliable Narrator Show

Unreliable narrators can be one of the most entertaining storytelling tools, and Vladimir is the perfect unreliable narrator TV show. Based on Julia May Jonas’s debut novel, the Netflix erotic thriller follows a middle-aged woman, whom we will refer to as “M” or “the protagonist,” working as a professor at a small liberal arts college.

M’s husband is undergoing a Title IX investigation for sleeping with his students, but she becomes distracted when a young, new junior professor named Vladimir Vladinsky starts at the college. The obsession with Vlad quickly goes downhill for Vladimir’s main character.

The Netflix miniseries is darkly comedic, thrilling, and sultry. The show is great for anyone who enjoys a character who breaks the fourth wall to make quips. It’s also the perfect choice for viewers who can’t resist an unreliable narrator.

Vladimir’s Protagonist Is An Unreliable Narrator You Can Love & Hate At The Same Time

The protagonist from Julia May Jonas’s book is one of the most detestable but fascinating main characters I’ve ever read. She’s an abuse apologist who trash-talks pretty much everyone around her, especially her husband’s accusers and her students. However, the Vladimir TV show changed the book by making the protagonist an unreliable narrator you can love and hate at the same time.

The first scene of the show makes it clear that M’s a complete liar. She says that all her colleagues love her salad and eat it all. Then, the camera pans over to show a completely untouched salad. This sets the expectation for audiences that they can’t believe anything she says. Without spoiling anything, there are plenty of other examples.

Over time, it becomes clear that the only thing we can trust is that M will make the most impulsive and reckless decisions possible if it will get her closer to Vladimir. That woman was horny and extremely dangerous.

While this is incredibly frustrating at times, it’s also what makes M such a lovable protagonist. She is the epitome of the phrase “we support women’s rights and wrongs.” She is messy, selfish, and sometimes cruel, and also really passionate, smart, and funny.

Vladimir makes space for a woman who isn’t perfect and lies about some of the most innocuous things. And trust me, M says some things that will make you want to shake some sense into her.

It’s clear that she is deluded and doesn’t have a good grasp on everything happening around her. She’s extremely biased and holds seriously outdated values. I got sick and tired of her saying, “It was another time” without any further introspection.

Ultimately, the fact that Vladimir can hold space for all these nuances makes it enjoyable. It doesn’t need clear-cut facts and a believable protagonist to tell a good story.

Vladimir’s Unreliable Narrator Makes The Story More Interesting

Because Vladimir’s protagonist is an unreliable narrator, it’s a much more interesting TV show. It is the kind of show that will be fun to talk about with friends afterward. There are so many ways to interpret the story, and very few of them are objectively right or wrong.

Sometimes it seems like M could be telling the truth, but there’s really never a guarantee. The moment I started to believe her, she would do something to completely shatter that. The protagonist keeps the audience guessing. It’s almost like one of those puzzles that have multiple possible solutions, so it will look different for each viewer.

Because of the ambiguity, it’s equally possible to see M as a victim, a perpetrator, an enabler, a hero, a villain, and an antihero. Viewers could walk away convinced that Vladimir likes the protagonist, while others will be certain that it’s all her delusions. Some folks, like me, will walk away thoroughly convinced that Vladimir’s ending isn’t real, and others will believe it happened as stated.

The perfect example of this is my colleague Liz Hersey, who wrote ScreenRant’s review of Vladimir, and me. We are both covering the TV show. We formed our opinions of Vladimir independently and arrived at different interpretations of the story. And that’s part of the fun. Ambiguity and unreliable narrators almost always lead to a good time.

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