‘The Apprentice’ Review
Stars: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan | Written by Gabriel Sherman | Directed by Ali Abbasi
Directed by Ali Abbasi (who made Iranian serial killer drama Holy Spider) and written by political journalist Gabriel Sherman, The Apprentice is a chilling account of Donald Trump’s rise to power in New York in the ’70s and ’80s. It’s particularly fascinating because it traces the origins of key elements of Trump’s larger-than-life persona, though it arguably never gets below the surface.
The Apprentice begins in 1973, where 27-year-old Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) is working as a rent collector for a real estate company owned by his father, Fred (Martin Donovan). With an upcoming lawsuit hanging over their heads, Trump starts hanging out at a swanky New York club, where he’s singled out by shark-like lawyer Roy Cohn (Succession’s Jeremy Strong), who revels in his reputation as “the man who put the Rosenbergs in the chair”.
Cohn soon becomes Trump’s lawyer and mentor, while his high profile connections (and willingness to indulge in blackmail) quickly open all the right doors, paving the way for Donald’s dream of opening a luxury hotel on 42nd Street, at that time a run-down neighbourhood full of crime and various sleazy establishments. With his star rising, Trump marries Czech model Ivana Zelnickova (Maria Bakalova) and eclipses his father in the business world, but he proves less than loyal to the man who effectively created his success, eventually distancing himself from Cohn altogether.
The performances are chillingly good. Stan delivers perhaps his best work to date as Trump, capturing everything from the body language (watch his hands) to the rhythms of his speech to his facial expressions and even the way he occupies space. Similarly, Strong is terrific as Cohn, a Machiavellian fixer and puppet master who has his own insecurities and contradictions, not least in the way he’s openly homophobic while still living with a young, male lover.
The most interesting element of the script is the way Trump completely absorbs Cohn’s three lessons for success: 1) Attack, attack, attack, 2) Admit nothing, deny everything, and 3) No matter what happens, always claim victory and never admit defeat. Those three elements are still readily apparent in his 2024 persona – you can see the defence mechanisms, and how well they’ve served him, but there’s no clue towards what’s underneath. Is he actively evil, a greed-obsessed narcissist, or a total sociopath?
There is, in fairness, a hint of the darkness beneath the surface, in a full-on, deeply upsetting rape scene between Trump and Ivana, though it’s characteristic of the movie’s approach that it is never even mentioned again, suggesting that Trump either just pretended it never happened (Ivana later retracted her claim that it happened, just as Trump has always denied it), or that he simply didn’t care.
On a similar note, The Apprentice allows Trump only one moment of actual vulnerability (he bursts into tears after the funeral of his brother) and Stan plays it like Trump is terrified by emotion – he can’t control it and so he pushes it away, just as he pushes away Ivanka when she tries to comfort him.
In short, this is a superbly made biopic (the production design and cinematography are both excellent), and if it doesn’t dig below the surface, that might be because the surface is all there is. Either way, The Apprentice is worth seeing for two terrific, awards-worthy performances from Strong and Stan – indeed, Stan is so good that there’s a strong chance you’ll end up resenting the movie for making you watch Donald Trump for two hours.
***½ 3.5/5
The Apprentice is out now.
