The Contributor: November 20, 2024

'The Apprentice' turns Trump’s origin story into a sensational fairy tale

BY JOE NOLAN, CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

Ali Abbasi’s new film The Apprentice opens with a montage of nighttime street scenes in New York City in the 1970s. The shots cut in a blinking barrage of neon images set to a propulsive punk rock soundtrack — it’s one part Taxi Driver and one part The Decline of Western Civilization. What a way to start a film about the rise of an ambitious young real estate developer named Donald John Trump. Abbasi tells Trump’s story with dynamic handheld footage complete with old school zoom shots and remarkable street photography. In the day Trump’s story and the crumbling facades of pre-Giuliani New York City blend together like grit and grime. But, at night, Trump spends his evenings at an exclusive club where he meets his great mentor who teaches him about power: how to get it; how to use it; how to keep it.

Sebastian Stan plays Trump as hapless one minute, powerfully sincere the next. He can’t stop talking about himself on a date, but he’s willing to be humiliated if it means saving his father’s business. Abbasi’s movie recalls pictures like Oliver Stone’s Nixon and W. Both of those movies paint portraits of political personalities who garnered both love and hate during their careers. These films are successful, in part, because Anthony Hopkins’ Richard Nixon and Josh Brolin’s George W. Bush imply familiar characteristics of their real life roles without becoming SNL imitations of them. The actors make their historical characters feel real and that makes them empathetic. The Apprentice’s title echoes Trump’s hit television show, but here it refers to the relationship between Trump and his mentor, Roy Cohn. Cohn was a lawyer and a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor who rose to prominence as an anti-communist crusader. Jeremy Strong is incredible as Cohn and I’m hoping that Stan, Strong and writer Gabriel Sherman all get a bright spotlight this awards season. The acting and writing in The Apprentice is so strong I found myself rewinding bits just so I could hear a repeat of a great quote or keep savoring a particularly carnivorous line reading. Director of photography Kasper Tuxen captures it all with the inventive use of 1970s 16mm news cameras for the film’s first act, before transitioning to broadcast video cameras to recreate the slick look of 1980s television.

The Apprentice’s journey to the screen has been as fraught as the 2024 election season. The movie faced significant challenges during its production and distribution phases. Abbasi encountered a lengthy dispute over the final cut of his film, and despite receiving an 11-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, The Apprentice struggled to find a U.S. distributor. Many major Hollywood studios and streaming platforms, including Warner Bros, Paramount, Universal, Netflix, and Amazon, declined to distribute the film in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election. There were also looming legal threats from Trump himself. The Apprentice was released in theaters on Oct. 11, but it disappeared almost instantly with no marketing budget. The film's troubles highlight the forever challenges of bringing politically charged content to mainstream audiences, along with the complexities of film distribution in this post-pandemic, post-writers’ strike landscape.

The film’s difficult roll-out is a shame, because the most remarkable thing about Abbasi’s picture is that I can see it appealing to all the voters who participated in this year’s presidential election. Crestfallen Kamala Harris voters will see a vulgar braggart, an uncouth outsider, a slimy predator, while the president’s supporters will see a loyal patriot, a tenacious winner, a no-nonsense American dreamer. I hope this film’s great performances, script and lensing win it a big buzz during this awards season, along with the audience it deserves.

Finally, there could be a thing folks can agree on.

The Apprentice is a currently available to rent and buy on all video on demand platforms

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Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/ songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.