The Apprentice review
Director: Ali Abbasi
Writer: Gabriel Sherman
Stars: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, and Maria Bakalova
Running Time: 123 minutes
Please note there may be spoilers below
Your interest in this scrappy biopic of a transactional friendship rests solely on how much interest you still hold in uncovering the faint character building moments of Donald Trump. It’s a weird question because, by this point in history, there’s very little of Donald Trump’s life you can’t already imagine. Without knowing the details, you can tell he’s been a bad husband, even by billionaire standards. You can tell he’s fuelled by an insatiable greed, an implacable narcissism, a body of chauvinistic rules that lifts him above all other people. Would it be of any surprise to see a movie confirming your preconceptions?
Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice provides a gossip-column greatest hits romp through the friendship between Trump and his paternal teacher and lawyer Roy Cohn. In New York terms, Cohn is legendary as the lawyer part-responsible for manipulating the legal system to execute Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage. He later became Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel in his subcommittee to question and stain the lives of suspected Communists. He was virulent, relentless and a closeted gay man, who remained in denial to his last breath when he died of complications of AIDS in 1986. He’s fascinating, vile, intelligent and filled with the kind of contradictions that make history compelling.
Trump on the other hand is somewhat less interesting. He’s the main character here and yet his shallowness is hideously obvious. Scene by scene we watch him travel the crime ridden streets of 1970s New York looking for purpose. From the very first scene his ego is only stroked by loyalty. He is naive, a man who can only envision the broad brush stokes of life – “I want to build the best hotel in the country, in the world” – but he lacks the ingenuity and aptitude to really get his hands dirty. Upon meeting Roy Cohn in the private members only Le Club, Roy seems taken with the ruthless ambition of the young tycoon. He’s green but he can be taught.
In some ways The Apprentice is a movie about casting, the thrill of actors trying to express the emotions, or lack thereof, of iconic people. Sebastian Stan’s Trump is a delicate dance of recognisable mannerisms and nasally New York vowels. He’s soft spoken here, with Stan choosing to play Trump more as a psychological study than an hurricane of inane sounds and waving hands. It’s brave and it works. Within minutes he’s a convincing character, full of childish anger and boyish sensitivities. Intriguing are the early sections where Trump cuts an isolated figure at Cohn’s power-broking late night parties, wandering from room to room, unsure of who to talk to or where to stand. The line between pathetic and dominant has always been blurry with Trump, and to the film’s credit, this is built into the character clearly from the outset.
Cohn on the other hand remains a fascinating monster of history, but he’s kept in a supporting position. There’s a superficiality at play with their relationship, as if the film’s only insight into both men is the already well established events of history – the racial discrimination case, the Commodore Hotel tax abatement, the construction of Trump Tower. While the big events are true to the timeline, the insight of the people themselves merely simmers. We are frequently reminded of the philosophy of Roy Cohn: “The first rule is attack, attack, attack,” and too often each rule reverberates directly into the current presidential election cycle. Rule two is admit nothing. Rule three is no matter what happens, you claim victory. Obviously the piece is a parallel to modern times, but I’m not sure the film can claim this is enough to drive the narrative of two insufferable egomaniacs.
What we really have with The Apprentice is a film keen on playing the hits but not creative enough to lift itself higher. Like watching a cover band, there is a distinct safety at play, the directing, visuals, and storytelling choices all flattened to explain each known event linearly and efficiently but not compellingly. We’re always so close to this bygone era of New York, with depictions of crime bosses, Andy Warhol, Roger Stone, Ed Koch, but so quickly we are removed from the liveliness of history and left in the safe choices of a film only keen to follow the biographical excepts rather than open up and show the world wholesale. If you’re going to show us how power works, a few bribes here or isn’t going to cut it. How does Trump actually suffer after his casino fails? How does Cohn actually suffer as a man in complete denial of who he is? These are questions you’ll have to seek answers for elsewhere.
Jeremy Strong is suitable as Cohn, but with a performance steeped in mannerisms and a script light on subtext, he’s not given the best platform. Jumping from scene to scene, the effect is one of reading a brief op-ed that skips through a public figure’s biggest headlines. For an expose of Cohn, Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn? does a more apt job at cutting into Cohn’s pathology. In The Apprentice, he stays shadowy to the end even under such a sad cloud.
In no uncertain terms does a personality like Trump and his mentorship narrative deserve a feature film, no less sustain it as entertainment, but seemingly the times we live in and the influence of such an empty figure has demanded cinema to pay attention. Let’s hope in the future we elect better, more inspiring leaders, for the sake of audiences everywhere.
