The Apprentice

Director: Ali Abbasi 
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Stron, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan, Jason Blicker, Mark Rendell, Bruce Beaton, Ian D. Clark, Tom Barnett, Stuart Hughes
Running Time: 123 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Depending on your perspective, Ali Abbasi's Donald Trump origin story The Apprentice can be viewed as either a grotesque hit job or an accurate biographical examination of one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in American history. Or maybe, it's just a little of both. In most biopics, lines between fact and fiction blur to a point where the truth rarely matters, which is a wicked irony its subject would likely appreciate, if the movie were about anyone but him.

It revolves around a young, aspiring real estate mogul out to prove his father wrong, hustling to make a mark long before becoming a TV star or being twice elected President of the United States. With studios unwilling to take the legal risk of releasing this and everyone getting their fill of the real thing 24/7, Abbasi gives us the only Trump movie we'll probably ever need. Its title refers not to his wildly popular reality show of the 00's, but a stint decades earlier under the learning tree of cutthroat attorney Roy Cohn, who takes the eager, inexperienced businessman under his wing. A decision he'll later regret.

It's 1973 and a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) is trying to get the federal government off the back of his real estate tycoon father Fred (Martin Donovan) who's being investigated for discrimination against African-American tenants. Trump meets with combative New York lawyer Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who agrees to help, in the process showing his new protégé how to make media connections and dress for the part. He also assists Trump in his quest to turn the dilapidated midtown Commodore Hotel into a Hyatt, blackmailing government officials to obtain a tax abatement.

Gaining fame and notoriety, Trump marries Czech model Ivana (Maria Bakalova) while his troubled airline pilot brother Fred Jr. (Charlie Carrick) sinks deeper into alcoholism. As his ego inflates by the day, he stops listening to Cohn and invests in rash, money losing ventures like the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Pushing everyone away, the marriage to Ivana implodes, as does his friendship with Cohn, whom he betrays during the crooked prosecutor's time of dire need.

It's pretty wild to finally see on screen what we've only read or heard about Trump's formative years in New York prior to him becoming as a household name. And while Abbasi lays that groundwork magnificently, the switch isn't flipped by a single event or even two. This evolution was brewing from the start, informed by both his strict upbringing and professional association with Cohn. There's an inevitability to it while still suggesting this could have gone another way for Trump if just a few things fell differently. But it didn't and Cohn lights a fuse he'll get to see explode before his 1986 death.

The film fittingly opens with the nation's jaded skepticism surrounding Watergate's immediate aftermath before seguing into the Reagan years, when Trump experiences his greatest success as the living embodiment of Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" philosophy. But it's Cohn who gives his pupil the three rules all winners live by: "attack, attack, attack," never admit wrongdoing and always claim victory, even in defeat. 

Trump will later claim those eerily prophetic rules as his in the bestselling "The Art of the Deal," but when he first encounters Cohn he's impressionable and clueless, struggling to escape the grip of his controlling dad. And what's most surreal about watching this interpretation of Trump in the late 70's is that he sort of comes across as likable and ambitious enough for us to see the same untapped potential Cohn does.

Cohn is depicted as a monster not above using blackmail, threats and intimidation against his adversaries. He's also a closeted gay Jew prone to hurling homophobic, antisemitic and misogynistic slurs when he feels it'll give him an edge, perceived or actual. Only at his lowest point do we get a small glimpse into why, though the script is careful not to frame that as some kind of mea culpa. He is who he is, with Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman wisely opting not to sugarcoat it.

With his piercing gaze and a robotically rapid fire delivery, an unrecognizable Jeremy Strong pulls off the ultimate disappearing act as Cohn. Conveying complete control at all times, the most powerful part of his performance comes when the teacher realizes he's done too good a job training Trump, as the prized student absorbs all of Cohn's heartless lessons, only to eventually use them against his mentor. But even when the crooked prosecutor's braggadocious bluster is stripped away by AIDS, Strong keeps us guessing as to whether he actually changes or was just overtaken by someone more ruthless.

That an ailing Cohn continues telling lies on his deathbed out of self preservation seems on brand for him, as if concealing his illness and homosexuality would somehow rescue an already shattered reputation. Strong doesn't play this for empathy or press the issue, instead subtly hinting that maybe the tiniest shred of humanity seeps through at the end.

Trump's uncomfortably disgusted reaction to Cohn's health nearly mirrors his feelings about Fred Jr.'s alcoholism. While he's initially supports his big brother and famously still doesn't drink because of this, their father looms large, insultingly calling his TWA pilot son a "bus driver with wings." And although Fred complains about how much of screw up Donald is also, it won't be long before the latter replicates his father's attitude, writing Fred Jr. off as a loser before his death shakes him in a way we don't quite expect. 

Well played with condescending cruelty by Martin Donovan, family patriarch Fred Trump is often pointed to as the central motivator for Donald's obsession with power and success. This portrayal doesn't refute that, but more noteworthy is how their relationship changes once Fred's grip slips and he's surpassed by his son, who seeks a validation he'll never get. 

Fred's not just incapable of telling Donald he's proud of him, even his backhanded compliments seem cloaked in jealousy and disappointment. If Trump Tower's opening is the closest a clearly declining Fred comes to congratulating him, it's a pathetically half-hearted endorsement that comes too late to matter. By now, young Trump's already off to the races and isn't looking back.

Once Trump ascends, he stops listening and hates being told "no," whether it's from Cohn, Mayor Ed Koch (Ian D. Clark), his own mother Mary Anne (Catherine McNally), or in a particularly disturbing scene, Ivana. Amidst these futile attempts to push back is a strangely memorable moment where a doctor tries to convey the benefits of exercise to the appearance obsessed, amphetamine popping Trump. This leads to a surprisingly graphic but powerful montage involving liposuction and scalp removal surgery.

In a role no one thought could be believably filled, Sebastian Stan is a revelation, finding just the right balance in preventing the portrayal from sliding into parody or caricature. Less an attempt at mimicry than the effort to capture Trump from the inside out, he projects the steadiest of transformations. It isn't obvious right away, but as events accumulate and the tide shifts, Stan resembles him more and more, both physically and in his mannerisms. By the time we get to the third act that resemblance is downright scary, making good on the film's promise of being an "American Horror Story."

Despite immersing us in the grit and glitz of 80's New York with offbeat soundtrack choices and stripped down cinematography from Kasper Nuxen that's indistinguishable from period footage, there are key moments of foreshadowing. Whether it comes in a revealing TV interview where Trump's asked about a possible Presidential run, Cohn's legal machinations or an exchange with confidante Roger Stone that reveals the possible genesis for MAGA, the film masterfully hints how seeds may have been planted far earlier than anyone thought.

This could have gone wrong in so many different ways or come across as a feature length SNL skit, but Abassi instead delivers a compelling account that will now fall on time and distance to judge. As the pre-credit disclaimer reminds us, issues of accuracy and exaggeration will follow any biopic, but what's more noticeable here is how every minute succeeds in capturing the perception of Trump's bombastic public persona. And by zeroing in on this very specific era, we get further into the headspace of a man we've lately struggled to picture in an incarnation other than his current one.