The Apprentice
Directed by Ali Abbasi (Briarcliff, 2024)
For all the obvious effort that went into making it, The Apprentice doesn’t seem to be a film that anyone would want to watch. The film’s unabashed glee in portraying Donald Trump’s seediest, cruelest, and stupidest moments would probably turn off even milquetoast Trump supporters. And for those who detest him, the graphic grotesqueness on display will provoke more nausea than vindication.
The Apprentice focuses on Trump’s (Sebastian Stan) early years in New York real estate. Despite being a failure in the eyes of his real-estate mogul (and unapologetically racist) father, he has enough raw ambition to attract the patronage of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), a powerful lawyer and political fixer who becomes something of a Svengali for the young upstart.
As the film draws on, Cohn’s vicious amorality seeps into Trump—or at least enables Trump’s own nascent amorality. The two engage in numerous blackmail schemes fueled by Eyes Wide Shut-esque orgies in service of Trump’s opulent development projects. Initially, Trump—who doesn’t even drink—is put off by these hedonistic and vulgar displays of wealth, but his vanity eventually gets the better of him: He becomes addicted to amphetamine weight-loss pills, he sexually assaults his wife, and the climax of the movie lingers voyeuristically over his liposuction and scalp-reduction surgeries.
By the end of The Apprentice, Cohn has died from complications of AIDS, while Trump the germaphobe provides him with a pittance of care. In the film’s final scene, Trump tells the ghostwriter behind The Art of the Deal his three rules for winning: always attack, admit nothing, and always claim victory, rules shamelessly stolen from Cohn. If this film has a message beyond Trump’s despicability, it’s here: The pursuit of power doesn’t just corrupt, it makes you no one, nothing more than a poor repetition of the tyrants who came before you.
The Apprentice is currently playing in theaters nationwide.
Image: Cannes Film Festival
Add comment