‘The Apprentice’—written by Newton’s Gabriel Sherman—exposes Donald Trump’s ruthless ambition and twisted mentorship under Roy Cohn in a sharply executed satire
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Donald Trump has been the subject of films, including Michael Moore’s non-fiction expose “Fahrenheit 11/9” (2018) and Sascha Baron Cohen’s faux documentary “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (2020). “The Apprentice,” Ali Abbasi’s surprisingly entertaining, fictionalized biographical film, which was written by Newton’s Gabriel Sherman (“Independence Day: Resurgence”), is framed as a Faustian tale of a young, ambitious scion from Queens named Donald Trump (an award-worthy turn by Sebastian Stan), who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for greater wealth and power. That devil is the real-life Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), a reptilian, dead-eyed attorney who made his name working for red-baiting Sen.Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings, calling out suspected communists. Abbasi, an Iranian-Danish filmmaker whose previous effort was the award-winning serial-killer thriller “Holy Spider” (2022) and who has since directed two episodes of the streaming sensation “The Last of Us,” has made a scathing, simply terrific satire depicting former president and current nominee Trump and the soulless New York City milieu that gave birth to him.
It’s the 1970s. Nixon, who is “not a crook,” has resigned. President Gerald Ford, who succeeded and pardoned Nixon, tells New York City, which is in the midst of a funding crisis, in a New York Daily News headline to “Drop Dead.” In spite of this, Trump wants to buck his brutal real-estate magnate father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), and renovate the old Commodore Hotel on 42nd. Street because Trump rightfully believes New York City will survive its crisis and rise again. Trump, whose father is being sued for racial discrimination by the government, meets Cohn at a Manhattan hotspot, where Cohn openly consorts with gangsters. Although Trump, who drives a Cadillac with “DJT” vanity plates, is a teetotaler, he drinks vodka excessively at the urging of Cohn. The mentor, who loathsomely boasts of getting mother-of-two Ethel Rosenberg “fried,” teaches Trump his rules of winning: “attack, attack, attack,” “never admit defeat,” and “there is no truth.” Sound familiar? Trump also meets a vivacious and sexy Czech model named Ivana Zelnickova (a marvelously scheming Maria Bakalova), and he won’t take no for an answer until he brutally drops her after they marry and have three children.
Abbasi evokes the 1970s-80s NYC with archival traffic footage and other period imagery cunningly interwoven with live-action photography by Danish cinematographer Kasper Tuxen (“The Worst Person in the World”). Stan, who is also very impressive in the current release “A Different Man,” delivers the performance of his career as Trump. He does not do an impression. He does a subtle evocation, and it is absolutely eerie. “The Apprentice” is part “Rake’s Progress” and part “Frankenstein” with a platinum-wigged Andy Warhol (Bruce Beaton) on the sidelines eager to immortalize the villains in his portraits. Cohn, who is a closeted gay man, has his “Warhol” on the wall. In language eerily reminiscent of our current election, Cohn tells Trump that “we are the only ones between (the country) and a totalitarian hellscape.” Rupert Murdoch happily keeps Trump’s name and photos in his newly-acquired tabloid, the New York Post. The New York Times publishes a flattering Trump feature comparing him to Robert Redford. At a party at Cohn’s lavish townhouse, we see one partygoer in a Nixon mask. Trump opens a door and sees Cohn engaged in a gay orgy.
Trump’s world is divided into “killers” (aka “winners”) and “losers.” In the film’s most controversial scene, he rapes Ivana in their home. Trump misguidedly adds casinos in Atlantic City to his empire, and his residence at newly-built Trump Tower is a gilt-and-ivory, boob’s Versailles. In a final bit of “The Substance”-evoking metamorphosis, Trump has liposuction and scalp-reduction surgery, a gruesome preamble to his future emergence on the world stage. “The Apprentice,” which had a hard time securing distribution in the United States, is one of the best films of the year. Stan nails it. Strong is incredibly intense and frightening until Cohn contracts AIDS. Abbasi, the William Hogarth of our times, has given us a caustic, semi-comic birth of a scoundrel. See it.
‘The Apprentice’
Rating: R, profanity, nudity, simulated sex, sexual assault.
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova
Director: Ali Abbasi
Writer: Gabriel Sherman
Where to See: AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC South Bay, and other suburban theaters.
Grade: A-
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