Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice details the making of a monster in the short-term 1970s-80s biopic in which Abbasi identifies the shift in Donald J. Trump’s life aided by the tutelage and eventual domination over Roy Cohn. In this much-anticipated, in-competition feature film, Abbasi chronicles Trump’s path from a shy businessman with big dreams to a mogul-turned-reality-star-president, which, for all its entertaining triumphs, fails to lock down the narrative arc it so nearly approaches, the ending of which fails to give credit and impact to the audience who have still-present stakes in the story of Donald Trump.
Abbasi depicts Trump in 1970s New York with stunning, mostly unknown details of his ascension to global business power, especially focusing on his relationships with his brother, lawyer, and first wife. The film credits Roy Cohn, the legal bull of his time, with teaching Trump everything he knows. Coaching him through baseless lawsuits, high-profile networking, drugs and alcohol, and media performance, Cohn takes Trump as his protégé free of charge, but rather in exchange for “friendship,” a price Trump lets Cohn die indebted to.
Within this, Abbasi scatters the seeds of Trump’s current persona. From Cohn, he learns his “three rules of winning.”
“1. Attack, attack, attack,
2. Deny everything and admit nothing,
3. No matter how fucked you are, you never admit defeat. You always claim victory.”
In other words, a “how-to” for staging a fraudulent election and attempting a political coup. Cohn even tells him to “spread the news like it’s already happening,” “truth is malleable,” and that the worst thing one can be in life is a “loser.” It’s all so very unsettling seeing the pieces put together knowing what we do now, like watching detectives on a crime show discover a serial killer’s overlooked motive and opportunity after the fact. It is no wonder Trump has tried to halt the sale and release of the film.
Beyond the subject matter, which writes itself, The Apprentice subtly identifies Trump’s childhood trauma to blame for the man we see today. Underneath the career progression lies a moment of massive shift which indicates where it all went wrong.
At the opening party of the iconic Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, Trump’s main “want” throughout the film so far, Trump approaches his father. In this critical moment, his father criticizes the hotel’s style and then, in reference to the success of the opening, tells Trump, “I know I’ve been tough on you, but look at you now.” We learn that it’s all because of his father.
In a painful moment, which almost begs our sympathy, we watch the misery brew in Trump. We watch his eyes harden. We see the little kid in Trump, begging for his father’s approval and pride, crushed by his criticism — a true moment of skill from Stan.
Afterward, Trump looks to women to abuse and punish. He returns home and rapes his wife. This transparent moment makes it all fall into place. It is a sickening scene, but one that only deepens the thesis that Trump’s tantrum trigger lies in shame learned in his childhood that manifests then and now in violence and cruelty. The rape of Ivana, never confirmed in their divorce court, is certainly one of the images which leaves the theater with us.
In this detail, Abbasi plants the seed for understanding Trump today. He explains that Trump’s treatment and crimes towards women are so obviously rooted in the neglect from his childhood. In women and in business he found control, and thus, he abuses them back — a cycle of abuse now gone national.
Surely the first of many Trump biopics to come, and following a slough of tell-all books and profiles, Abbasi adds something new to the conversation and serves it up to all of Hollywood and Business as an in-competition Cannes premiere: Trump is a child of neglect, of abuse.
However, the narrative arc relies too heavily upon the audience’s public relationship with Trump, asking us to fill in the blanks for the man we know from our screens rather than lean on its merits as its own story.
The plot seems to suggest that Cohn simply took Trump under his wing because he seemed to have ambition, which we accept because we now know what he is capable of. What is unexplored is if Cohn chose Trump as his protege because he sensed Trump’s capacity for a cutthroat realm that would feed off of his buried anguish. The story shows clear signs of Trump’s past but unfortunately under-develops the faith in the characters themselves to see it.
The drama in the relationship between Trump and Cohn is all the more championed by Jeremy Strong’s stellar performance. Truly in his career prime, Strong’s mastery of the sunken-eyed, soulless 1% from his Succession (2018) days will continue to be audience’s window into the disturbed elite and their spiritual suffering.
The joy of the film is watching Sebastian Stan master the mannerisms and speech patterns of Trump. In the pursed lips and now-well-known-self-prasing our American TVs are all too familiar with, Stan accomplishes a performance properly elevated above the slough of Trump impressions, never allowing a cinematic moral his conception of Trump. With the utmost respect for the character, Stan accomplishes a true faithfulness to the source material many overlook in easily mocking Trump.
In this, Stan and Abbasi alike importantly remind the audience that the puppeteering and cheap shots at Trump are unnecessary and counterproductive (if we did not learn that in the last election). Trump’s story stands on its own. The often-imitated orange skin and yellow, thinning hair and obesity and pale lips and accent distract from the reality that Trump’s personhood and business are his true embarrassments. Mockery cheapens the fair criticisms of the man. Abbasi has created a film that gives due credit to the valid criticisms of Trump and instead hits him harder, where it hurts and where it should.
Perhaps in an effort to remain a-political, The Apprentice is about Trump’s psyche and his mental disturbance which created the man we see today. However, in this effort that results in an ending that only cheekily jokes about a presidency, Abbasi dodges an opportunity to leave the image of Trump as more than a historical figure who one day became president, but as a still-active threat. The Apprentice dates Trump.
Abbasi relies heavily on The Apprentice’s legacy to come, creating a film that will surely impact the next generation more than this one. The Apprentice takes a more historical lens rather than a present-day cautionary tale that gives credit to the stakes still looming.
Just 6 months before the 2024 election, a Trump biopic should be aware of itself enough to leave an image of the current threat beyond just leaving the film’s ending with Trump in a book deal meeting.
After two hours of deeply fascinating anecdotes which most of the public have yet to hear, to end simply with the book deal is a shame.
I could have watched another hour of The Apprentice, and it would have been worth it for an ending that sat with me. The Apprentice starts the 2-hour race in a sprint and unfortunately ends at a crawl. While a fantastic story, much work remains to be done as a successful screenplay.