If you are like me and at least 50% of the American public, you have absolutely no more mental bandwidth to spend on Donald Trump. But as I write this, with the 2024 presidential election just over three weeks away, the curiosity factor of this quickly-released biopic of the former President’s formative years in the 1970s and 80s is undeniable.
Unless you have been hiding in pop culture and political cave for the last 40+ years, I don’t need to introduce Donald Trump. That is the job of this strange, watchable exposé of the molding of the man who is introduced in 1973 as a sort of blond, handsome pliable young wealthy man with big plans. We meet young Trump (Sebastian Stan) in an exclusive Manhattan lounge where he has been oggling and pointing out all the billionaires in the room to impress his date. But one Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) is watching him. Yes, that Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer who convicted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of spying for the USSR (they were then executed), and who was the right-hand man for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, who destroyed the careers of many folks in the media, entertainment, and the government.
In The Apprentice, it’s the 1970s and by that point Cohn has a reputation as a known fixer—he’s so deeply embedded in all that is corrupt he doesn’t flinch when Donald asks him for help with a seemingly impossible mess: The U.S. government is suing Trump’s father’s real estate company for racist practices, for turning away potential Black tenants as renters. Cohn’s solution? Flip the script and sue the U.S. government for suing them! The case gets settled, and the two men settle into a sort of master and apprentice relationship. Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. At the beginning, Trump is a bit naïve, showing up saucer-eyed at one of Cohn’s wild parties, where he bumps into Andy Warhol (he doesn’t know who he is) and accidently opens a door to a gay orgy, where Cohn is happily in the middle of the pile. But as Trump starts to have his own success, like his renovation of the crumbling Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt Hotel (leading the revitalization of a crappy part of New York City), and the very grand opening of Trump Tower, the power dynamic between Cohn and Trump starts to shift.
Part of Trump’s success can also be attributed to the Czech-model-turned-interior-designer, a lovely woman named Ivana (Maria Bakalova) whom Trump became smitten with while his star was rising, wooing/stalking her until she dumped her boyfriend and married the entrepreneur. And it seemed like they were happy. The movie gives Ivana Trump respect, showing that she was no dummy and that she actually did the interior design of some of her husband’s most famous real estate projects in the 80s. But as the decade rolled on, the rising Trump got tired of Ivana (there is an icky rape scene, that seems to signify his switch to full-on narcissist), and he got tired of Cohn, whose physical decline (of AIDS) accelerated his social decline (it was easy to shun a man affected with a deadly plague).
If you can disassociate yourself the movie’s direct relationship to the real world for a couple of hours, The Apprentice is a weirdly entertaining watch, especially the first half. Sebastian Stan (leaving any glint of Winter Soldier behind), plays Trump as naïve and sort of sweet during his rise to power. He has enough charm and charisma to woo a smart climber like Ivana (and Bakalova plays her with empathy and intelligence). But with all those “artful” deals, and avoidance of paying of bills, and popping of amphetamines, and all the WINNING… it’s still kind of hilarious to see Stan as Trump constantly smoothing his evolving, hair-sprayed blond swoop in the mirror.
However, it’s Jeremy Strong who completely steals all his scenes in a frightening way. As Roy Cohn, he’s like a calm apex predator. He’s not a large man, but walks through a room with a stiff stillness, the type of man where you’d want to avoid direct eye contact. (When Cohn first spots Trump across the room in the opening scene of the film, the whites of his eyes spookily seem to glow in the dark.) He’s matter-of-fact in his horrific style of ruthlessness, sharing his three rules of winning with young Trump: 1) Attack, attack, attack. 2) Admit nothing, deny everything. 3) No matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat. Sound familiar? The apprentice learned well, and it is easy to recognize the man he is now. The scary thing is, I think that Trump may even like this film. If he decided not to sue the filmmakers. Which of course he has.
