AN AMERICAN HORROR STORY.
As I’m writing this review, Donald Trump has entered the last few weeks of his third presidential campaign. Exhausted and showing clear signs of cognitive failure, but still considered a viable candidate by his party, Trump predictably dismissed The Apprentice as a film made by ”human scum”. Funny, that’s the reaction most people who see the film are likely to get from spending two hours with Trump and his mentor, Roy Cohn.
Collecting rent from tenants
We first meet a young Donald (Sebastian Stan) in 1973 when he’s working for his father Fred (Martin Donovan), collecting rent from tenants. Donald has just become a member of an exclusive club and is approached by Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), a hotshot attorney who’s close to President Nixon and famous for having sent the Rosenbergs to the electric chair. Living a lavish life, Cohn is known as a man who takes no prisoners in the courtroom, and also for his gay orgies.
After helping Donald and Fred with a court case, Cohn takes the young man under his wings and teaches him a few guiding principles: always attack, never admit wrongdoing and always claim victory.
A teacher outmaneuvered by his student
This is obviously the man we see today, the Trump who is frequently defeated (in politics and in the courtroom), but angrily claims to be a winner, the man who always lies because how he views himself and the world isn’t compatible with the truth. The strategy has sometimes served him well, personally, but hurt everyone in his presence and, because of his narrow presidential win in 2016, damaged the nation as a whole. Gabriel Sherman, a journalist and author who previously wrote a biography on Fox News chief Roger Ailes, realized in conversations with people close to Trump just how much Roy Cohn must have mattered to the budding real-estate tycoon. The screenplay he wrote built a traditional portrait of a teacher who’s outmaneuvered by his student. It is an interesting part of the film that makes you ponder how it is possible that people can be so seduced and blinded by charismatic men like Cohn and Trump. There are moments when you find it a little too hard to believe; Trump is such a wretched asshole in this film. Then again, he’s also that in real life and millions of people seem to admire him nonetheless.
Sebastian Stan has the right approach, not overdoing the imitation, but slyly adding certain recognizable traits.
Having Cohn appear as almost a victim to Trump may be an exaggerated attempt to fit their relationship into a familiar formula, but the actors still have you hooked: Strong as the vulture-like attorney, Stan as the inexperienced rich boy who slowly grows into the boastful, increasingly detestable real estate tycoon who became a media darling in the 1980s. The latter has the right approach, not overdoing the imitation, but slyly adding certain recognizable traits, especially as he virtually transitions from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader on the operating table near the end.
It’s not a pretty film. Not only do you feel dirty after spending time with these people, but the actual look of The Apprentice is similar to a cheap VHS tape from the 1980s, a perfect symbol of Trump, his best era and the tawdriness behind all of his projects.
The Apprentice 2024-U.S.-Canada-Denmark-Ireland. 123 min. Color. Directed by Ali Abbasi. Screenplay: Gabriel Sherman. Cast: Sebastian Stan (Donald Trump), Jeremy Strong (Roy Cohn), Maria Bakalova (Ivana Trump), Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick.
Trivia: Co-produced by Abbasi. Clint Eastwood and Paul Thomas Anderson reportedly turned down offers to direct. Billionaire Dan Snyder contributed funds to the production, thinking it would be a positive portrait of Trump; when he learned the truth, he tried to stop the film’s release.
Last word: “Honestly, what I’m more concerned with is that both sides find us really annoying – that we’re not anti-Trump enough for liberals and we’re not pro-Trump enough for MAGA people. When we showed the movie in Telluride, I was talking to so-called conservative viewers and so-called liberals. They were both confused. Does this guy love him or hate him? Is this a takedown, or is this not? And I thought, That’s the biggest compliment I’ve heard. We’re sort of equal-opportunity offenders. For me, that’s the point.” (Abbasi, Esquire)
