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It’s a boastfulness so outrageous, so overblown, that we cannot help but immediately recognize it as an echo of the braggart who has dominated the world stage for nearly a decade. An actor clearly made up to resemble Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) sits in the back of a limousine and claims his latest construction effort is “going to be the finest building in the city, maybe the country.” But then there’s an awkward pause. The budding real estate mogul realizes his exaggerations haven’t crossed into the realm of cartoonish bravado. So he hastily adds on “[the biggest] in the world!” like it’s a cherry smooshed on top of a crumbling sundae.
The moment in question is a scene in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, and now it’s at the centerpiece of the film’s first trailer ahead of a last-minute Oct. 11 release date. While it’s just one of many familiar images in the sizzle reel of Trumpian excess, it’s also notable because of the way Stan plays the scene: his version of Trump, at this point in his life, is not able to buy his own line of balderdash. He can’t commit to the bit which would eventually turn Trump into one of the most famous, and ultimately powerful, personas of the last 50 years. Whether as an object of ridicule or worship, we all recognize Trump’s braggadocious style. The appeal of The Apprentice, though, would seem to be getting behind all that hot air—or realizing it’s a front to begin with.
The movie, which comes from the director of Holy Spider and several episodes of The Last of Us, as well as screenwriter Gabriel Sherman, depicts a much reported (and heavily speculated upon) friendship between the infamous fear-mongering lawyer, Roy Cohn, and Trump. Well before knowing Trump, Cohn was a chief counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Senate hearings that made the latter’s name synonymous with “witch hunts” and political grandstanding. Cohn furthermore played a pivotal role as a prosecutor in securing the death penalty for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted Soviet spies who helped steal state secrets involving the atomic bomb.
Cohn also was reportedly something of a mentor to Trump in the 1980s, helping cultivate his interest in political life, as well as the public persona we all know today. In The Apprentice, this will be depicted by Cohn (Jeremy Strong) literally coaxing Trump (Stan), right down to being the one to insist he keeps bragging until he claims his site will be the most beautiful building in the world! Even Trump looks uncomfortable in the trailer while indulging in such naked mendacity. Of course the appeal of the movie is that we all know any semblance of shame or self-awareness will be snuffed out of the apprentice soon enough.
The Apprentice has been turning heads ever since it was announced and earned a largely favorable reception at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Yet for months it was a mystery whether the film would be released ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election as was so obviously intended. One of the film’s financiers, billionaire Dan Snyder, is a Trump donor and loyalist who reportedly helped get the movie made under the impression that the film would paint Trump in a positive light. Allegedly after seeing the film last February, Snyder got lawyers involved in an attempt to prevent its release (or at least see it re-edited). Furthermore, the Trump campaign threatened legal action and described the movie as “pure fiction” after the film’s Cannes premiere.
Nonetheless, the movie eventually found a U.S. distributor in Briarcliff Entertainment. The company is boldly putting the film out on Oct. 11, less than four weeks ahead of the November election.
The producers of the movie have, thus far, not been sued despite the film including salacious and wildly unflattering accusations from Trump’s early biography, including (MINOR SPOILER ALERT) a scene of the man who would be president raping his then-wife Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova). But even this scene is based on documented allegations that have largely been papered over by the Republican Party during the last nine years. Indeed, Ivana reportedly alleged in a 1990 divorce deposition that Donald sexually assaulted her after he blamed her for what he believed to be an exceptionally painful cosmetic surgery operation (she had recommended the plastic surgeon). Notably in the trailer for The Apprentice, we will see scenes of Donald undergoing various cosmetic surgeries after Cohn tells him he has “a fat ass.”
The Apprentice appears extremely provocative and likely to irritate millions of American voters who will surely refuse to see the film. Yet for those who do, or even just watch the trailer above, it should also offer a reminder. Too often in our far more scripted world—or as scripted a loose cannon like Trump can be—the modern image of Trump painted by his campaign is that of a tough strongman who claims resolute morality derived from the Christian Bible (at least when he isn’t trying to simultaneously pander to women still furious that his Supreme Court picks overturned Roe v. Wade, as he promised they would do in 2016).
He claims to be a force of morality and simple, “small town” American values. Yet in the trailer for The Apprentice, and surely the final film, we are reminded that the real Trump spent his life carousing and reveling in the elite corridors of New York City power, including with self-styled kingmakers like Roy Cohn. His political aspirations began by partnering with another man who under normal circumstances would likely be shunned by evangelical churches—Cohn died of AIDS-related complications in 1986 in spite of denying he was HIV positive or that he pursued same sex relationships—and in indulging in a lifestyle closer aligned with Sodom and Gomorrah than Bedford Falls.
Whether The Apprentice is “fair and balanced,” or indeed the hatchet job the Trump campaign protests, it will give a mid-October reminder of Trump’s real persona, which beneath all the vitriol and bluster, is a guy who once upon a time also couldn’t believe his own schtick, but sure loved all the doors it opened and celebrity it won him. As the real Trump once said, “When you’re a star, they let you do anything.”
The Apprentice opens Oct. 11.
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