Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in the movie “The Apprentice”
In February of this year, Dan Snyder, an American billionaire businessman who had recently moved from owning football teams to film production, sat down to watch a private screening of the film. It was in this film, called The Apprentice, that he invested millions through his company Kinematics. Snyder was only too happy to open his checkbook, believing the film he was financing was a flattering portrait of his friend Donald Trump, and dutifully bankrolled Ali Abbasi's biographical drama along with a number of investors, including the Canadian government.
A more astute financier may have realized that this unusual choice of co-founders meant that the finished project would not necessarily be as florid a piece as he might have expected. Yet when the screening ended, according to a report in Variety magazine, Snyder's hopes that – in this crucial election year – the picture in which he had invested a huge amount of his money would be a tribute to the future president were completely dashed. .
In his growing rage, he wanted nothing more than to burn away the negativity. And then, allegedly, legal letters and talk of a “cease and desist” began – even abandoning the film entirely.
Snyder, who has yet to respond to Variety's message, failed, not least because the production company distanced itself from him. “All creative and business decisions related to The Apprentice have always been and continue to be made solely by Kinematics,” the statement said.
Maria Bakalova, director Ali Abbasi and Sebastian Stan promote the film “The Apprentice” in Cannes Photo: FilmMagic
Three months later, The Apprentice received a high-profile premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival. This year's event wasn't without its share of spectacular spectacle (Coppola! Costner! Demi Moore's grand return!), but if the sheer controversy is anything to go by, nothing came close to the much-discussed version of the relationship between Donald Trump and his mentor and lawyer Roy Cohn, the man , who taught him how to become the giant in political and social culture that he became.
According to news agency AFP, the film “paints an unflinching but nuanced portrait of the former US president.” It contained, as the news agency reported – perhaps with apparent horror – “rape, erectile dysfunction, baldness and betrayal.” And that doesn't even cover half of everything. There are moments in which Trump (still a man in his twenties and thirties during the time period covered in the film) is shown getting both liposuction and a hair transplant. They say that the scenes of the latter are especially terrible.
The beleaguered presidential candidate, currently tense in a New York courtroom himself, has already responded through his campaign team. Its communications director, Stephen Cheung, said left-wing filmmakers clearly had a political agenda in mind this year, and also threatened that there would be a lawsuit over “the patently false statements of these pseudo-filmmakers.”
The statement goes on to say: “This garbage is pure fiction, sensationalizing lies that have long been debunked. This is election interference by the Hollywood elite, who know that President Trump will take back the White House and defeat the candidate of their choice because nothing they have done has worked.”
Ivana Trump and Donald Trump in December 1982. Photo: Getty
Whatever the film's artistic merits (reviews are mixed), there's no doubt that The Apprentice shook the cages in a spectacular way that rarely happens in political cinema. Of course, there have been few films about American presidents who hit the jugular so viscerally. Leaving aside Mike Nichols's toothless Primary Colors, starring John Travolta as a thinly disguised Clinton, and Oliver Stone's ambitious but unsuccessful George W. Bush biopic V., the truly successful attempts to delve into the lives and psyches of the Oval's residents was a bit. Office.
Even Stone's Nixon – perhaps the last truly warty portrayal of a clearly flawed man – was criticized in some quarters for not pulling his punches. Now, however, Abbasi's Take No Prisoners film has finally brought politics into modern cinema, and the buzz it is making suggests that he has done his job admirably.
From the smirking irony of its title—the nod to Trump's successful television series is entirely intentional, although that part of the future president's life is not depicted in the film—The Apprentice is a largely unflattering account of the future president's early years. . It focuses on the rise to fame of a young Trump, played by Captain America and I star Tony Sebastian Stan. The actor's last high-profile role was the role of narcissistic sex addict Tommy Lee in the biographical series Pam & Tommy; the comparisons between the priapic politician and the preening musician are irresistible.
His bullying father Fred, who sent young Donald door-to-door to collect debts to the family business, is played by Christopher Nolan regular Martin Donovan, while Trump's first wife Ivana is played by Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, best known for her. role playing Borat's daughter. She also regularly stars in films like Transgression and Women Cry, which no doubt prepared her for such a demanding and, if early reports are to be believed, emotionally draining roles.
Donald Trump with Roy Cohn in 1983 Photo: Getty
However, for many viewers, the most interesting will be the casting of the great Jeremy Strong, fresh off his award-winning role in Legacy. Strong takes on the role of Roy Cohn, the monstrous figure who instilled in Trump the mantras he has lived by ever since; his advice can be summed up as “attack, counterattack and never apologize.” The real-life relationship between them is fascinating.
Cohn took Trump under his wing, believing he could turn the brash but oddly shy young newcomer into something he could take advantage of, and the ambitious real estate developer initially did well with his mentor before eventually betraying him while Kon was dying from it. AIDS. (In the film, Cohn laughs at the attendees of his lavish parties: “If you're charged, you're invited.”) This is rich Shakespearean material, and it's all too easy to imagine Strong – who, after all, gave us a twisted version of Hamlet in the Legacy , tearing apart the anger in the spirit of Iago with all his might.
Cohn has previously been played on screen by the likes of Al Pacino and James Woods, and was immortalized on stage in the play Angels in America, which portrays him as a Mephistophelian figure, spouting homophobic slurs and refusing to acknowledge his homosexuality. (Cohn was even the model for Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.) There is no doubt, however, that his formative role in Trump's life has been underappreciated in the public consciousness.
There have already been accusations of fabrication and politically dictated propaganda. One of the film's most controversial scenes shows Trump having violent sex with Ivana, which from the viewer's perspective may or may not be rape. Although the film begins with the disclaimer that many of the events in it are fictional, the scene remains extremely controversial due to Ivana's differing accounts of her inspiration during her lifetime.
Maria Bakalova playing Ivana Trump in The Apprentice Credit: Variety
“At one point in 1989, Mr. Trump and I had a marital relationship in which he acted very differently toward me than he had during our marriage,” she said in 1993. “As a woman, I felt violated… I called it rape, but I don’t want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
During the divorce proceedings, Trump called it “patently false,” but in 2015, when her ex-husband was running for president, Ivana clearly felt she needed to clear the air, saying in a statement: “I recently read some comments attributed to me almost 30 years ago, during a very stressful time during my divorce from Donald. The story makes absolutely no sense. “Donald and I are best friends and have raised three children together that we love and are very proud of.”
Those involved in the film described the sex scene as “rough but consensual”; Ivana died in 2022, so she cannot comment on the film or her presentation in it.
During a press conference in Cannes, Abbasi, who previously called his film a “punk rock version of a period film” in which he tried to “[not] get too caught up in the details and what's right and what's wrong,” expressed perhaps , disingenuous surprise at the Trump camp's reaction to the film. (Interestingly, some left-wing critics criticized the film for being too generous with him, noting that there are moments in which he is described as handsome and bearing a noticeable resemblance to actor Robert Redford.)
Sebastian Stan, who plays Donald Trump in the movie “The Apprentice” Photo: Invision
Abbasi offered to meet with Trump to discuss the film, saying: “I don't necessarily think he won't like the movie, I don't necessarily think he'll like it, but I think he'll be surprised.” Describing himself and his cast as “completely unbiased” – ironically – he read a statement from the absent Strong that “we are living through the long dark shadow of Roy Cohn” and that it is only fitting that he is currently starring in the film. Broadway play “Enemy of the People”.
However, Abbasi suggested that rather than The Apprentice being an exercise in pinpointing sensations, his intention was to make a film about the corrupting influence of power and how Cohn passed on his poison to another generation. However, he could not resist the most pressing excavations; When asked when he would like to see the release of his film, which currently does not have a US distributor, he replied: “We have a promotional event, the US election, and a film, so we really hope that happens in the future.” ” out [then].”
He also remains calm about the possibility of legal action from Trump. “Everyone is talking about how he sued a lot of people,” the director joked. “However, they do not talk about his success.”
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