Female Film Critics 24/375
If movies didn’t matter, then Donald Trump’s reelection campaign wouldn’t have sent a cease-and-desist letter threatening a lawsuit to the producers of The Apprentice. If movies didn’t matter, then the producers of The Apprentice wouldn’t have struggled to find US distribution among supposedly liberal Hollywood, which was already kowtowing to Trump and his cultish followers even before Trump won reelection.
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Long before real estate mogul Donald Trump hired wannabe business executives to be his protégés on a reality television show, there was a rude and remorseless, pompous and pandering New York lawyer named Roy Cohn who brought a young Trump into his legal laboratory and groomed him in his image. This transformation is the basis of the biographical film The Apprentice.
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What we talk about when we talk about The Apprentice is Jeremy Strong in the role of Roy Cohn, a performance of such ferocity and richness that a viewer is left slack-jawed in wonder. But The Apprentice is essentially a film about how Trump became Trump; besides Roy Cohn’s influence, the movie covers the 1970s and ‘80s version of Trump — his marriage to Ivana (Maria Bakalova), his failed casinos in Atlantic City, what looks like a growing reliance on amphetamines, and so on. It’s an often amusing tale, but essentially tragic. Director Ali Abbasi shows the long-gone crumbs of humanity in Donald Trump; the notion of Trump starting out as an inept, easily impressed young man is an interesting take. Expect heated viewer arguments after every screening — always a good sign.
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