Directed by Ali Abbasi | Written by Gabriel Sherman | 120 min | ▲▲▲▲△
A capsule review of this film appeared on FITI in September during #TIFF24
The Donald Trump biopic has arrived in cinemas, despite efforts to stop it. The Donald Trump campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to the producers, claiming the entire film is fiction. This though screenwriter Sherman is a journalist, correspondent for Vanity Fair, MSNBC, and author of a book about Fox News president Roger Ailes — the kind of writer you’d trust to get the story right. Iranian/Danish director Ali Abbasi is the filmmaker responsible for the terrific Iranian serial killer movie, Holy Spider. These are legitimate talents.
So is the actor under the blonde swoop — Sebastian Stan, best known as The Winter Soldier in the MCU, and in cinemas now in the interesting but fatally flawed A Different Man.
This film covers some 10 or so years from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, illustrating how the second son of the wealthy-but-cold Trump clan leveraged his wealth, connections, and a white hot ambition to become the King of New York. He had help — New York lawyer Roy Cohn (an impressive Jeremy Strong) who instructed Trump on a playbook of how to win, no matter what.
The Apprentice is a surprisingly engaging, occasionally trashy film. Its vision of much younger pre-presidential, pre-TV star Trump is someone recognizably human, someone who can never admit vulnerability or weakness to a sociopathic degree. It’s a gangster movie without guns. This while not looking away from Trump’s vulgarities or violence — we get a scene where he sexually assaults his wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova) and the many betrayals, of family and friends, come thick and fast.
The performers put on an acting clinic, especially Stan, Strong, and Martin Donovan — almost unrecognizable as Fred Trump. The look of it is terrific — grainy 16mm for the ’70s, garish video for the ’80s, and only occasionally can you tell they shot on Toronto streets doubling for New York. Also, full marks for the perfectly chosen era-specific needle drops — especially Baccara’s “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie.”
People coming to the film who hate Trump will likely bristle at how it humanizes him — critics are already upset the film, which is about a character’s inevitable corruption, isn’t more forthright. As we go along Stan’s subtle shifts in mannerisms means the Trump we get at the end of the film, when he’s writing Art Of The Deal, has made the journey to becoming a vain blowhard — he’s a long way from the insecure callow dude from Queens we first meet. And people coming to the film who love Trump won’t buy into any of this, anyway.
As for those who are undecided — we hear about those folks during this election season in the United States, and I frankly wonder who in their right mind hasn’t made up their mind in 2024 after more than eight years of Trump the politician — those people maybe should check out The Apprentice. They might learn a thing or two about the psychology of the once and possibly future Cheeto Mussolini.
