TORONTO — Donald Trump trying to put a gag order on incendiary stories about him isn’t exactly breaking news. The former president and the truth have never been allies.
Take, for instance, Trump’s presidential debate on Tuesday against Vice President Kamala Harris, when he claimed he is not involved with the much-maligned Project 2025, despite information to the contrary. Or the many times Trump has denied that he sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996, despite a 2023 jury finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
So, it should have shocked no one when it was reported a few months ago that Trump had initiated a cease-and-desist action against “The Apprentice,” director Ali Abbasi’s fictionalized drama based on Trump’s 1980s relationship with his infamous lawyer, the late Roy Cohn.
It is funny, because without having actually watched the movie — and there has been no evidence that Trump has — why would he be concerned with a story about his relationship with his lawyer unless it carries unsavory information about him that he doesn’t want the public to be reminded of in the midst of his latest presidential run?
Well, that is actually the case with “The Apprentice,” which, based on Trump’s response to its existence, may bear some semblance to reality.
The film depicts Trump (Sebastian Stan) raping his then-wife Ivana Trump (Maria Bakalova), having liposuction and scalp reduction surgery, engaging in tax evasion, redlining his apartment buildings, and turning his back on his addict brother Fred (Charlie Carrick) soon before Fred’s death in 1981. In addition, the film contains scenes of infidelity and fraudulent spending and portrays Trump as an unaffectionate father who becomes a grade-A jerk to whoever is in his orbit.
“The Apprentice” also shows Trump shunning Cohn (Jeremy Strong) partly because he was disgusted by speculations that the lawyer, depicted as a closeted gay man and homophobe, had contracted AIDS. In the film, following Cohn’s death, Trump has his home professionally deep cleaned after a recent visit from the dying lawyer.
In short, this isn’t a flattering portrayal of the former president. But it is also fiction — or at least, that’s how two of the film’s producers described it to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview ahead of the film’s very exclusive, intimate screening at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month.
“We are creative people first and are telling a fictional story. That really is the lane that we have tried to stay in and amplify,” producer Amy Baer said. “We really want people to see the movie as a work of art and a work of fiction and make them think.”
Abbasi, who helped introduce the movie to a far more curious audience in Toronto than some festivalgoers who weren’t at the screening and balked at even the thought of the film, essentially said the same thing just before the screening began.
Realistically, though, presenting the film as a work of fiction is going to be a tough sell for audiences. It was reportedly hard for the producing team to get solid support from a distributor, particularly after Trump’s cease-and-desist attempt.
The film’s team even launched a Kickstarter campaign for additional funding, meant to drive interest from the public (so far, it’s raised over $300K of a $100K pledged goal) and especially to counteract the former president’s efforts to put the kibosh on it — as well as those of Trump supporter and former producer Dan Snyder, who reportedly “was displeased with the film’s depiction of Trump.”
That’s all unusual for a film that had a big premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and does actually have distributors. The film also did not go on to formally screen at TIFF, as many films generally do, and was only shown to a small gathering of press and VIPs instead.
But then again, there’s the response Abbasi recently told The Wrap that he got from potential studios early in the filmmaking process:“They said to me, ‘We would love to do this film, but if Trump wins, if the studio gets sold — they’ll come after us.’ Or they would say, ‘We don’t want 85 million consumers to hate us.’”
That reaction seems in line with the industry’s long-standing issue of being risk-averse and suggests that Hollywood is far less liberal than folks representing the industry — celebrities and the like — would routinely have the public believe.
Abbasi went on to impress in that same interview that the film, written by Gabriel Sherman, is “not a hit piece”: “It’s an entertaining character piece. Donald is really ‘made in America.’”
Honestly, it’s hard to tell a story even loosely inspired by Trump’s life and career that isn’t going to be a bit disparaging. Trump continually disparages himself and presents it as totally acceptable behavior.
But “The Apprentice” was also made through the lens of a director who, at least when it came to discussing his last feature, “Holy Spider,” seems progressive-leaning. He also shared a somewhat relaxed response to the ongoing debate about fictionalized truths in film.
“There are different ways of looking [at it],” he told HuffPost in 2022. “For me, I have a filmmaker brain. But I also have a more, let’s say, theoretical brain. And the theoretical part of me [believes that] this hard line between what is reality, what is not, it’s really not accurate.”
Whether scenes from the film truly happened also doesn’t, or perhaps shouldn’t, really affect the quality of storytelling. However, while the film is said to be a work of fiction, each character in “The Apprentice” has the name of a real person.
Ivana Trump actually alleged that her then-husband raped her and had a scalp-reduction surgery in the 1993 book “The Last Tycoon.” (Trump denied both allegations).
The film also uncannily recreates Peter Manso’s 1986 interview with Cohn, during which the journalist pointedly asks: “Do you have AIDS?” The lawyer quickly responded that he had liver cancer (a claim he maintained until his death at age 59). “The Apprentice” also recounts Manso bringing up a longtime rumor that Cohn was “a homosexual.”
“It’s a lie, as far as I’m concerned,” Cohn says, a sentiment also repeated in the movie.
Still, Abbasi’s comment to The Wrap — that “The Apprentice” is a character study about how a figure like Trump could so easily, and frequently, be made in America — holds up.
“The Apprentice” is a fascinating portrait of the kind of deeply entitled white man born into a powerful and rich family in New York we still see today, whose encounter with a similarly powerful figure (Cohn) at a seedy bar one night shapes him into an even more volatile person.
The movie argues that, in fact, figures like Trump are made and not born. Through Stan’s eerie portrayal, we see Trump transition from a spoiled heir and up-and-coming real estate figure whose confidence was engulfed by his dad’s (Martin Donovan) intimidating presence into a literal villain.
How? “The Apprentice” proposes that it happened under Cohn’s tutelage. It presents the gradual progression of a mentor and mentee relationship as Cohn coaches a young Trump on things like deflecting from accusations, denying everything and having a performative ego.
And while Strong gives Cohn an exaggerated nod every time he talks, almost like he’s trying to convince either himself or whoever he’s talking to that he’s saying something extremely important, Stan adopts the same tic for Trump later in the film.
It’s difficult to decide whether Stan’s performance borders on cartoonish at times, simply by nature of how we’ve seen Trump act in public (the oddly pursed lips, the erratic hand gestures — you get the point). It’s rare that he’s given a bit more nuance with the character, save for a moment of grief midway through the film. Even then, it’s cursory.
It might just be a sign of incurious writing. Or maybe that’s part of the mystery of Trump, who, as also seen in “The Apprentice,” orchestrates stories about himself all the time that are usually one-dimensional.
But on the other end, Strong’s tortured portrayal feels earnest, complex and loathsome as he plays Cohn: uttering a homophobic slur in one moment, casually revealing extortion plans to protect Trump in the next, almost manically having sex with a man at a party in another — and dissolving into tears during one of the film’s most affecting scenes of betrayal towards the end.
Each of the actors in “The Apprentice,” which noticeably borrows its title from Trump’s canceled reality competition series of the earlier aughts, does a solid job supporting the overarching thesis of the film. But it leaves a lingering question.
What is the point of it?
The answer isn’t clear, particularly when you think about the monthslong hoopla around the film, the reported pushback from studios, and even its convenient release date on Oct. 11, mere weeks before the fate of Trump’s latest presidential run is decided.
It’s a very specific story set in a very specific time, largely about a very specific relationship that has relatively depleted relevance for many movie audiences today.
Though, if anything, “The Apprentice” could make viewers far more intrigued about Cohn — who’s no longer here to attempt his own cease-and-desist action, nor is Ivana Trump and others whose likenesses appear in the film.
Is the movie sensationalized “garbage,” as Trump’s spokesperson said in the cease-and-desist letter? “Garbage” seems unfair, because that connotes a sense of untruth. The essence of who Trump has always presented himself to be is, actually, right here in the movie.
But sure, it is sensationalized, perhaps in an attempt to rattle more conservative or undecided voters with details and rumors that have long been in the public domain, some for decades.
Still, if Trump’s own public persona hasn’t already influenced voters, why would this so-called fictionalized drama?
What’s ultimately most fascinating about “The Apprentice” is that it’s one of those films — they come along every so often — whose marketing seems to get far more talked about than the actual movie: everything from the crowdfunding campaign to the many rejections from studios to the advantageous timing.
But we’re also still in an era when the debate over the role of truth in true crime and/or historical fiction rages on, when polarizing moments like Trump appearing at the NABJ trigger numerous critical narratives that accuse the event of platforming him.
Given that, who knows how people might respond to the mere image of Trump in “The Apprentice.” So far, the team behind the movie has been very vocal about the many obstacles the film navigated to come to fruition. That, in itself, might pique some viewer interest, but far fewer people have raised the question that audiences might not want this either.
Perhaps it’s a necessary film, coming at a very important time… or however you want to market that. It’s also a well-paced and largely nuanced portrait of white greed, power and the art of human performance.
But it might not get the popular vote.
