Vlad Ivanov makes corrupt and compromised men credible without making them easier company. We rate the precision of his acting highly; the reservation is that too many roles ask him to be someone we have already learnt to distrust.
Fi1m perspective
In 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Vlad Ivanov makes long stretches of dialogue feel dangerous. His Domnu' Bebe, an underground abortionist, belongs to a film in which arranging the practical details is already frightening. We found it almost unbearable because Cristian Mungiu keeps the difficulty of obtaining an illegal abortion so insistently before us. Ivanov's precision matters here: Bebe is credible enough not to need a more demonstrative performance. Anamaria Marinca holds our attention throughout, and the pressure can feel excessive, but this remains the place to start with him.
Bebe brought Ivanov international attention, followed by a persistent pattern of casting as antagonists and corrupt authority figures in Romanian films. With Corneliu Porumboiu, he played Anghelache in Police, Adjective (2009) before taking the lead as Cristi in The Whistlers (2019). Mungiu and Porumboiu have each worked with him on three films. Those continuing collaborations give us more reason to follow him than another promise that he will be unpleasant company.
He prepares detailed biographies for his characters, extending their lives beyond the period covered by the film. That fits an actor whose strength is making ethically ugly behaviour credible, and whose theatrical precision serves him well in extended dialogue. We do not need to see the homework; with Bebe, we believe the person. The reservation is the repeated casting: once we expect corruption from his first appearance, a film has less work to do and he has less room to surprise us.
His international work offers other starting points: Iliescu in Toni Erdmann (2016), or Oszkár Brill in László Nemes's Sunset (2018). He also works across Romanian, English, French and Hungarian, which makes it harder to regard one sort of character as his natural limit. We would welcome more chances to watch him without immediately suspecting the worst. Another corrupt official ought to have something new for him to do.
Biography
Vlad Ivanov is a Romanian actor. He trained at the University of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography in Bucharest and has been a member of the National Theatre in Bucharest.
He is known for roles in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) as Domnu' Bebe, Snowpiercer (2013), Toni Erdmann (2016), The Whistleblower (2010), The Concert (2009), Graduation (2016) and The Whistlers (2019). He has received Gopo Awards and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor.
