The Apprentice

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan

Due to its subject matter, Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice had a hard time finding an American distributor and audience. The film, thanks to a sharp and well researched screenplay by Gabriel Sherman, depicts the young Donald J. Trump in the 1970s and 80s receiving tutelage in the dark arts of persuasion and power by legendary heel and New York power lawyer, Roy Cohn. Cohn is portrayed as paving the way for Trump's gargantuan real estate projects with his legal acumen and blackmail skills. We also get to witness Trump's awkward courtship of Ivana and the dysfunction within Trump's family, with a special emphasis on the alcoholism of Trump's brother, Fred Jr. 

Fred Trump Sr., played here by an unrecognizable Martin Donovan, was a chilly and cruel figure known throughout New York City as one of the metro area's most infamous slum landlords. Trump Sr.'s troubles with the IRS and the US Department of Justice provides the impetus for the Donald to seek out Cohn's counsel. Some critics thought that The Apprentice was too soft in its satire, but I think one of the reasons it succeeds is its humanization of its main characters. Neither Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump nor Jeremy Strong as Cohn ever resorts to caricature or burlesque. They offer us portraits of powerful men who are not at ease in their own skin. Trump because of his warped family dynamics: he seeks his father's esteem because he knows he will never get his father's affection. Cohn is portrayed as a self-hating queer who views relationships as transactional and instructs Trump to do the same.

Both the performances by Stan and Strong rank among the year's best. Besides Donovan, I also liked the supporting turns by Maria Bakalova, Charlie Carrick, Mark Rendall, Catherine McNally, Stuart Hughes, Bruce Beaton, and Barbara Katz. Abbasi has given the film a verite look. This prevents the film from seeming too handsome and makes the actors seem more bracing and lifelike. He shot the 1970s sequences in 16mm, often hand-held, and filtered the 80s sequences so that they look like they are VHS tape footage. This makes the segues between the dramatic footage and stock footage, usually showing Gotham in decay. flow more smoothly.

The use of "video footage" also dovetails nicely with the film's theme of the manipulation of the media by Trump to further his own ends. Fawning interviews of Trump are juxtaposed by one of Mike Wallace eviscerating Cohn. Stars rise and inevitably fall. The film opens with video of Nixon's infamous "I am not a crook" speech. Screenwriter Sherman is trying to link the sleazy maleficence of Trump to Tricky Dicky and Cohn and the Red-baiting era. Opinions will vary, depending on how much MAGA Kool-Aid one has drunk, on whether this is a valid stand. What the film is a irrefutable success at portraying is how Trump's career has been one long promotional video feed featuring continuous episodes of The Apprentice.