What turned Donald Trump into such a powerful and polarizing monstrous figure?
Grade: B- (**1/2* out of *****)
Sebastian Stan plays the insecure entrepreneur during a pivotal period, and Jeremy Strong is cast as Trump’s ruthless lawyer and mentor Roy Cohn.
Abbasi’s fourth feature is his third in a row to screen in Cannes Festival–Border won the top prize in Un Certain Regard in 2018, while 2022’s Holy Spider earned Zar Amir Ebrahimi Best Actress.
Abbasi has delivered a timely drama–Trump tries to regain the presidency–and the star power of Stan and Strong (supported by Oscar-nominee Maria Bakalova) will draw interest.
When first met in the mid-1970s, Trump is an aspiring mover-and-shaker in New York’s real estate world and is introduced to feared, amoral attorney Roy Cohn (Strong). The blunt ballbreaker takes Trump under his wing, teaching him the secrets to being a winner.
With Cohn’s guidance, Trump grows his business empire while wedding socialite Ivana Zelnickova (Bakalova).
Written by journalist Gabriel Sherman, The Apprentice gets its title from the NBC reality series that had restored Trump.
Trump and Cohn’s rapport–sort of an eager disciple and a malevolent teacher–sparks Trump’s supervillain origin story in the context of a seedy New York during times of economic downturn, which eventually led to the 1980s boom.
Trump’s unloving father Fred (Martin Donovan) belittled him into becoming a lethal businessman, but The Apprentice argues that it was Cohn’s unscrupulous behavior that inspired Trump to bully his way to success.
Abbasi, English-language debut, struggles to find a compelling arc in Trump’s ascent, but the film lacks a decisive perspective on the man whose greed and ambition took him all the way to the White House.
There is some grim fascination in watching an irredeemable egomaniac overcome every obstacle blocking his path. But Trump’s quest never lends itself to deeper revelations about the mogul, nor does it suggest how he symbolizes the dark side of American exceptionalism (his slogan is, of cours, Make America Great Again, MAGA),
Once Cohn develops AIDS in the 1980s he recedes from the narrative, and his presence is very much missed. Ivanka also slides into the background.
In some scenes, The Apprentice is dramatically flat, even when depicting Trump’s infamous incidents–including Ivana Trump’s charge her husband raped her (an accusation she later disavowed).
There has been so much coverage of Trump’s life that most people will find The Apprentice lacking any shocking or revelatory details about the man, who became the very impersonation of evil and unbridled power.
Credits:
Canada/Denmark/Ireland
Running time: 120 minutes
