The controversial and divisive “The Apprentice” dresses Donald Trump’s origin story in Mary Shelley’s clothes. FrankensteinAnd who is the good doctor in this tale? None other than Roy Cohn, who gets help in creating his monster from the notoriously cruel Fred Trump.
Director Ali Abassi’s film unfolds in two distinct chapters: an hour in the ’70s, as a young and relatively naive Trump (Sebastian Stan) learns the art of the deal from the ruthless manipulator Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Then an hour, roughly a decade later, as Trump has reached a level of corruption and amorality that he would maintain for most of his life. The first half has an intriguing concept and is reasonably well-told, but the second half falls apart due to a distinct lack of point of view or much to say about its subject. Screenwriter Gabriel Sherman gets lost in the forest of what we know about Trump, dropping references and personality quirks like a Marvel writer uses Easter eggs, making the whole exercise feel as hollow as a midnight comedy sketch. Throughout, the actors keep their heads above water, but “The Apprentice” seems to eventually land on “There’s no explanation for this guy beyond greed and capitalism.” That seems superficial and easy.
Sherman is a journalist by nature, and the sections where “The Apprentice” seems to be using his knowledge base of 1970s New York political and real estate landscape to its full potential are the film’s strongest. Stan instills the young Trump with a confidence that might be called burgeoning: He’s willing to follow Roy Cohn (Strong) into the bathroom to convince him to help build his famous hotel on 42nd Street (property taxes be damned). Strong plays Cohn like a shark often surrounded by fish, but he also captures how he saw something he could mold in the young Donald. He noticeably teaches the future president three principles of life and business that he later repeats as his own while working in The art of the deal:
- Attack, attack, attack.
- Admit nothing, deny everything.
- Claim victory and never admit defeat.
It’s easy to see these political and business practices in the lives of Cohn and Trump, but seeing them implant and fertilize each other in the younger version of him makes the film interesting. While it’s not developed enough in the script, you could say that he begins to employ these three beliefs outside the office as well, in his relationships with his family and with the girl who catches his eye one night, Ivana (Maria Bakalova). The Oscar-nominated star of the “Borat” sequel nails her few scenes, refusing to play Ivana as the two-dimensional trophy wife that the press often portrayed her as in the 1980s.
Just when “The Apprentice” seems to be gaining momentum, it jumps to the mid-’80s, catching up with a very different Trump and Cohn, just as the former’s star is rising as a beacon of Reagan-era capitalism, and plotting the launch of Trump Tower. Why Sherman and Abbasi simply jump back in time over the development of a person they clearly believe to be a monster is baffling. It’s literally like jumping from the prologue to the epilogue of a life story, forcing us to connect the dots between these two important chapters. The point seems to be that Cohn and Trump have switched places, as the former watches his partner die of AIDS, and realizes that his former apprentice no longer has a place in his life for a former ally. The idea that we’re supposed to feel sympathy for a monster like Cohn as he watches the horror he’s caused is morally risky, to say the least.
Abbasi’s brash approach starts to feel like parody, alternating between easy jokes and obvious lines for almost the entire second half, while the movie’s smartest material — the Cohn/Trump dynamic — takes a backseat. We see nods to MAGA, and Stan slams the word “loser,” and it’s hard not to think of Alec Baldwin’s “SNL” impression once or twice. Even the richer material starts to feel perfunctory; lines like “You have to be willing to do anything to win” seem like an easy way to explain Trump’s many complications. Plenty of people are willing to do anything to win. They don’t. all Become Trump.
“The Apprentice” ends with a scene designed to downplay any dissatisfaction with the shallowness of the previous two hours, by basically arguing that there’s no way to explain how we got to this point. A young real estate mogul with a critical father found a new kind of father figure in Roy Cohn, and that relationship changed world politics forever. That’s all. It seems like something that might have worked better in a book, where the writer could offer more detail and fill in some of the gaps between the 1970s and 1980s versions of the future president. Instead, the movie often doesn’t know what to say about its subject or what we should make of him now. And downplaying it all with a “Well, that’s what this guy was like” seems like a no-brainer. shape too easy
Is this a satire of the American dream? A horror movie about how it turned into a nightmare? Or a comedy about a buffoon who basically just happened to walk into the men’s room on the right day? It seems unwilling to really answer these questions, content to substitute easy takes for difficult conversations about capitalism, politics, family and marriage. Maybe there’s just too much to say about Donald Trump for a two-hour movie. I have a feeling this won’t be the last attempt to figure it out.
This review was featured during a special screening at Fantastic Fest. It opens October 11.He.