Just ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Ali Abbasi’s film The Apprentice, the controversial biopic about the rise of former president Donald Trump, will be released in theatres on Oct. 11. Starring Sebastian Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, a cease-and-desist letter from Trump’s attorneys hasn’t stopped the film from meeting its audience.
Shown during an invitational screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Abbasi has stressed that the intention of this film was not to make a particular political statement, but rather, thinking about the people in this movie as characters and and the story as another angle on the “American dream.” But ultimately, Trump is very much a real person and it may not be entirely possible to not be political.
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” Trump campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, shared in a statement, following the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Going back to 1970s New York, we see Trump in the early days of his career, trying to make a name for himself in real estate from under his father’s shadow. His current role is going door-to-door to collect rent from tenants of the Trump Village apartment complex.
As is portrayed in the film, things change when he meets attorney Roy Cohn (Strong) at a private club, known for his anticommunist work with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. With the Trump family real-estate business facing a lawsuit due to racial discrimination in their housing developments, Trump thinks Cohn is the person the family needs to fight the Department of Justice.
Cohn takes Trump under his wing, not unlike a a pseudo father figure, and shares his ways of deception and manipulation with him. The first rule: “Attack. Attack. Attack.” The second rule: “Admit nothing. Deny everything.” And finally the third rule: “Claim victory and never admit defeat.”
Embodying these “rules of winning,” as the film progresses through the 1970s to the 1990s, and Trump becomes more successful, his narcissism grows. Trump eventually pushes his mentor Cohn away, as he’s seen being particularly uneasy being with Cohn, a closeted gay man who contracted AIDS.
The film also shows Trump meeting Ivana (Maria Bakalova), with their relationship eventually becoming incredibly volatile, including Trump hurling vile insults and raping her (both Trump and his ex-wife have denied rape allegations).
As the film nears the end, Trump’s relentless and cruel behaviour extends to just about everyone around him.
At the core of The Apprentice seems an attempt at investigating how Trump became Trump, but what the film proves is there’s no easy path to this answer. That being said, Abbasi certainly leans on the relationship between Trump and Cohn, paired with Trump’s contentious relationship with his father. But that does leave us wondering what else wasn’t explored in all the elements that have impacted this man’s behaviour.
What makes The Apprentice particularly worthy of viewing are the performances by Stan and Strong, in particular.
Stan is able to transform into Trump with really compelling intricacies, navigating the naivety of Trump during the early moments of the film, to his self-indulgence getting liposuction and a hair transplant, to the abhorrent way he casts aside everyone around him by the end of the film, like they’re not worthy of being in his presence.
For Strong, there’s such a compelling intensity in his performance, really playing the complexity of Cohn in a particularly committed portrayal.
But after watching The Apprentice you can’t help but ask, is this film even relevant today? While films can, and should, put a magnifying glass onto influential people in our world, so much has happened with Trump in recent years. Does going back to his youth mean anything?
Trump supporters will certainly not be fans of some of the later scenes in the film depicting his vile behaviour as a businessman and a person. Those on the opposite end of the spectrum could believe that Abbasi should have had a harsher hand throughout the entirety of the film, with less interest in humanizing Trump.
But with cinematographer Kasper Tuxen uniquely transporting us visually from the ’70s, to the ’80s and ’90s, and truly gripping performances, that will certainly be enough to satisfy viewers.
