The Apprentice by Ali Abbasi paints the portrait of a young Donald Trump under the influence of a mentor.
It’s the story of a Faustian pact. Roy Cohn, the lawyer who helped McCarthy during the witch hunt and contributed to the execution of the Rosenbergs, spotted the young Trump in the 1970s. At that time, he was a poor guy in his thirties. who collects unpaid rent for his father. He has ambitions but not the shoulders. And it’s Cohn who will give them to him by teaching him three rules. Rule #1: “Always attack”. Rule #2: “Always deny when someone accuses you.” Rule #3: “Affirm that you are the winner, even when you are beaten”.
How Trump became Trump
With this credo, Trump will climb the ladder and become the arrogant person we know and who will eventually get rid of his mentor when he no longer needs him. By choosing to title his film like the reality TV show that Trump presented for years, Ali Abbasi (Nights of Mashhad, 2022) is turning things around. It’s Trump the apprentice. But the portrait that the Danish director of Iranian origin paints is not that of a good student, rather of a dunce who thinks he is at the top of the class. That his film comes out in the middle of the presidential campaign is not insignificant. This is an accusation against the former (and perhaps future) American president. An uneducated man, violent with women, contemptuous with men. And bad at business. Sebastian Stan plays Trump without falling into caricature, Jeremy Strong plays a fascinating Roy Cohn. And that’s perhaps the film’s only flaw. In the conflict that will ultimately pit these two personalities against each other, the film presents the lawyer as a victim. When he is the devil himself.
the Apprentice ★★★✩
Directed by Ali Abbasi. With Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova – 120′.
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