Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Ben Sullivan, Charlie Carrick, Mark
Rendall, Joe Pingue
You'd be forgiven for rolling your eyes at the notion of a Donald Trump
biopic and presuming it to be little more than a two-hour SNL sketch. And
that's probably what we'd get if The Apprentice were helmed by
an American filmmaker, given the evidence of screen treatments of despised
political figures like George W. Bush (Oliver Stone's W), Sarah Palin (Jay Roach's Game Change) and Dick Cheney (Adam McKay's
Vice). Thankfully it's in the hands of Iranian-Danish director
Ali Abbasi (Holy Spider), who approaches the subject with a little more nuance than the expected
broad "orange man bad" statements.
Working from a script by journalist Gabriel Sherman, Abbasi's
film - which takes its name from the reality TV show that arguably did more
to propel Trump into the White House than any of his business achievements -
begins in 1973 and ends at some point in the late 1980s. We encounter a
young Donald (Sebastian Stan) as a socially awkward rich kid
disrespected by his real estate mogul/slum landlord father Fred (an
unrecognisable Martin Donovan), who puts Donald to work collecting
rent from his working class tenants. The early scenes of Donald encountering
hostility from his tenants recall Beau Bridges in Hal Ashby's
The Landlord but where Bridges' character rebelled against his
slum landlord father by striving to improve the lives of his tenants, Donald
sets out to supersede his old man by developing a ruthless streak.
He does this with the aid of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), an infamous
New York lawyer known for his willingness to do whatever it takes, even if
it means breaking the law. The secretly homosexual Roy sees something in
Donald that might be interpreted as either paternal or predatory. Either way
he happily takes him under his wing, becoming a cross between Henry Higgins
and Baron Frankenstein as he moulds Donald's Eliza Doolittle into a monster.
Roy has three rules which he passes onto his young apprentice: always be on
the attack, deny all wrongdoing, and never admit defeat. If you haven't been
in a coma for the past decade you'll be aware of how Donald embraced this
guidance.
The Apprentice is an American tragedy that works on two
levels. We see the malleable young Donald as a naive oaf who simply wants to
make something of himself, and we're forced to wonder how differently things
might have turned out for America, and indeed the world, had he found a
mentor who wasn't a sociopath. From their first encounter, with Roy plying
the teetotal Donald with vodka to the point where he throws up, Donald's
older mentor is a snake who corrupts the ambitious young man with a
decidedly Big Apple. But even though we know where this is going, and
despite how awful Donald and Roy are, there's something touchingly tragic
about the trajectory of their friendship. The more of a monster Donald
becomes, the less he feels reliant on Roy, whose physical degradation as a
result of succumbing to AIDS makes him ultimately become that which he
feared most, a weak man. Despite the various wrongdoings we've witnessed, we
can't help but feel a little sorry for Roy as he realises Donald no longer
needs his guidance.
Any good actor will tell you that no matter how evil a character they might
be portraying, they find whatever humanity they can in the role. We've
become so accustomed to broad parodies of Trump that Stan's refusal to do a
simple impression comes off as revelatory and the way he gradually grows
into the Trump we're familiar with today is fascinating to observe. Strong
plays Cohn like a cross between John Turturro and a vulture, his body
constantly coiled like a drunken Glaswegian ready to headbutt a nightclub
bouncer, but there's an eternal sadness behind his cold eyes.
The Apprentice sometimes struggles with its difficult task of
finding the "real" Donald Trump when at this point Trump probably doesn't
even know himself, but Stan and Strong keep us compelled by finding the
human hearts of these monsters. And for all this story's ultimately wider
ramifications, The Apprentice can be boiled down to a tale of
two friends falling out. Few stories are more tragic.
The Apprentice is in UK/ROI
cinemas from October 18th.
