The Apprentice is the hotly anticipated Donald Trump biopic starring Sebastian Stan that puts the former US President in the role of mentee, years before he ruled TV screens – and the free world.
And in Trump himself’s parlance, it’s pretty tremendous.
With little idea of what to expect ahead of its Cannes Film Festival premiere, director Ali Abbasi has crafted a smart, sharp movie with screenwriter Gabriel Sherman about the early years of Trump.
It shows the controversial figure cultivating his trademark aggressively determined approach – and crucially never admitting defeat – thanks to New York lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who takes the young real estate businessman under his wing in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Someone like Trump is a personality ripe for parody, but The Apprentice has its fun without ever needing to caricature him; it simply shines a light on his past from a future where most people are only too aware of his most exhausting traits.
There are knowing political references peppered throughout, foreshadowing his future despite the young Trump’s reluctance to pursue that path – the film even starts with Nixon’s famous declaration during the Watergate scandal: ‘People have got the right to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.’
I don’t need to draw the dots for you there.
And with that, The Apprentice is off with an irony-heavy gusto.
Stan is quite a revelation as Trump, in make-up that only initially alters him in the barest of ways to conjure up Trump. Although it may appear a little underwhelming, to begin with, it’s not long before the subtlety of his expertly studied performance begins to impress.
The Pam & Tommy actor pouts and purses his lips to a pitch-perfect evocation of Trump that only becomes more pronounced as his ‘killer’ character is crafted by Cohn – after all, as this Trump reminds us, there are only two types of people in the world: killers and losers.
The star is equally careful with Trump’s voice, which again becomes more raspingly cartoonish as Trump is coached to success. His plans for Trump Tower will make it ‘the best hotel in the city’, then hastily ‘country’ and then ‘world’ he adds, correcting himself during a phone interview as Cohn prods him from the backseat to brag.
His dialogue is also instantly recognisable as Trumpian in its repetitive and exaggerated nature, well crafted by Sherman, who also throw in a classic ‘‘uge’ for Stan to enjoy early on.
Stan absolutely makes the right decision to underplay Trump with a more nuanced performance though, allowing for a little humanity now and then before Cohn ostensibly strips it all away from his protégé.
Strong arguably has the more bombastic and attention-grabbing role as the antagonistic, somewhat vicious Cohn in The Apprentice.
He has the biggest, brashest lines (‘Everyone wants to suck a winner’s c**k’) and takes the boldest swing with his unrelenting performance. He is weirdly charismatic in his unpleasantness, meaning that when the fracturing of their relationship arrives, and Cohn begins to succumb to illness, Strong is even able to tug a touch on the heartstrings with some pathos, despite all his monstrous behaviour prior.
Although The Apprentice delves into Trump’s first marriage to Ivana Zelníčková (Borat’s Maria Bakalova) – including a shocking scene alluding to past allegations that will infuriate his loyal MAGA fanbase – the film is most concerned by the relationship between Trump and Cohn. A relationship that is also shown irking Ivana at times.
The admirable restraint shown by The Apprentice given the litany of near-unbelievable material provided by the real-life Trump is one of its greatest assets, alongside the complementary performances from Stan and Strong.
It does throw a pretty large bone for its widest expected audience – the Trump sceptics – though, in its grisly depiction of his alleged cosmetic procedures of liposuction and a scalp reduction surgery to correct his baldness.
While there was no public reaction from Trump himself to the film until its Cannes screening, he’s since become far more vocal and has spent months trying to block the movie’s release.
‘A cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job,’ is how he described The Apprentice in his latest rant this week on Truth Social, sharing his hopes that the film (made by ‘human scum’) will ‘bomb’.
However, The Apprentice is, without question, a strong candidate for everyone most eagerly looking forward to it.
This review was originally published on May 20, 2024.