It’s a film that caused a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival. Wednesday October 9, “The Apprentice” is released in theaters in France and Friday October 11 in the United States. A few weeks before the American presidential election, Danish-Iranian director Ali Abbasi depicts the young years of Donald Trump.
An uncompromising, scathing and wonderfully performed biopic, Ali Abbasi’s film retraces the years of apprenticeship in cynicism of the future president of the United States. We are at the dawn of the 1980s, Donald Trump is still dabbling in the shadow of his father when a feared lawyer, Roy Cohn, takes him under his wing and teaches him everything that will later be his trademark: attacking, lie, always deny and whatever happens – and especially if you have lost – proclaim your victory loud and clear.
The Apprentice hooks the viewer with its frantic pace, its sharp lines which recall the series Successionand its brilliant actor, Sebastian Stan, whose increasingly orange complexion and hair transformations gradually make the contemporary Donald Trump appear on screen.
Allusion tothe reality show who made Trump a public figure, The Apprentice is an effective film, which does not give in to fascination, even if we sense Ali Abassi’s pleasure in filming the world of the super-rich.
Read more on RFI
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