Donald Trump is one of the twenty-first century’s most important people. I don’t just mean from a fame standpoint, though I’d bet you could show a picture of him to nearly anyone on the planet, and they would recognize him. When I say he’s important, I mean as a person who influences the course of world history. Someone with influence.

As you read this, Trump is a person who can make things happen. In a strange way, the outcome of the 2024 election almost doesn’t matter in terms of his influence. Whether or not he wins, he still has influence with a speech, a social media post, or a phone call. You have an opinion on that. So do I.

As happens so often with influential people, a biopic has been made about Donald Trump. It’s called The Apprentice, and as happens with good biopics, it offers a sense of who its subject had been and who he became. The more I think about this film, though, the more questions I have. I wonder in the year 2024, how many people really want to immerse themselves into a character study of Donald Trump. I wonder if an understanding of who he is matters anymore.

We begin in the mid-1970s, and the young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) isn’t where he wants to be. Sure, he’s rich. He lives in an impressively large house in Queens. He’s got a large car with lousy gas mileage. He wears the apex of men’s fashion. He’s hungry. For what, he likely can’t articulate, but he’s hungry for more.

The problem, and it is a big one, is that Donald works for his father, Fred (Martin Donovan). The family owns a number of apartment buildings, but when Donald walks through a squalid hallway collecting rent, he doesn’t feel like a master of the universe. Fred won’t let him. In his world, you’re either a killer or a loser, and as far as Fred can see, Donald hasn’t racked up much of a body count.

Things change, as they always do. While on a date, Donald meets a stranger across a crowded room. That stranger is Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the feared New York lawyer and one-time protege of Joseph McCarthy. Cohn has no compunctions about using the dirtiest of dirty tricks, including outing gay men. How does he feel about this, considering that Cohn is, himself, gay? He seems to sleep pretty well at night.

Donald and Cohn are both objects of fascination to each other. Cohn sees something in the young man, a kind of human clay he can mold. He teaches Donald his rules:

1. “Attack, attack, attack.”
2. “Admit nothing, deny everything.”
3. “No matter what happens, you claim victory and never admit defeat.”

Donald takes to Cohn’s mentorship all too well. Whether he’s wooing the young Ivana (Maria Bakalova), dealing with his severely alcoholic brother Freddy (Charlie Carrick), or laying the groundwork for building what would become Trump Tower, the rules govern everything.

If you’ve been alive during the last nine years and change, you might have noticed that every facet of American life has become politicized. Movies are no different. About half the country is, to some degree or another, cool with the idea of Donald Trump returning to the White House. I would imagine that those people aren’t super interested in seeing The Apprentice, a movie where Trump rapes Ivana, gleefully engages in corruption, and screws over his own siblings to gain control of the family inheritance. Coincidentally, while a considerable chunk of people don’t want to vote for Trump, I think they also aren’t super interested* in seeing The Apprentice due to feeling burned out by the titanic amount of attention paid to him.

In a way, that’s a shame. If I’m being honest with you, I felt depressed watching The Apprentice. I didn’t love spending two hours with people who were almost utterly venal, dishonest, and cruel. But director Ali Abbasi isn’t interested in trashing Trump’s reputation, nor is he focused on portraying the forty-fifth President as the greatest man in American history.** Abbasi in a general sense offers a nuanced portrayal, and in a more specific sense, he’s interested in the odd friendship between Trump and Cohn. I think the first half of the film set in the 70s works better. There’s more of a focus on the push-pull of their relationship, and the dichotomy between the naive rich kid from Queens and the closeted Manhattan fixer. During the second half set in the 80s, the character of Cohn is mostly pushed to the sidelines. The film transforms into more of a standard biopic in which we see Trump get married, make moves to build Trump Tower, and transform from Trump to TRUMP. By that point, it’s more interested in a “This happened, then this happened” kind of biopic than it is a character study.

When it comes to character, the film is aces, and that’s in large part due to the screenplay by Gabriel Sherman. The script’s attention to characterization is excellent. We watch a callow young man internalize lessons from his mentor. He transforms, slowly, haltingly, then quickly. What Trump ultimately becomes is the embodiment of Cohn’s teachings, only louder, gaudier, and dumber. The character of Trump is amoral, purely transactional. Roy Cohn’s characterization is different, and it’s weirdly sympathetic, despite Cohn being one of the most repugnant figures of the twentieth century. Here, Cohn genuinely likes and cares for Trump. He sees a spark of greatness that can be fanned, and he’s genuinely hurt when his creation rejects him. It bears mentioning, too, that if there’s a sympathetic character here, it’s Ivana. She might not be goodness personified, but she’s portrayed as someone who thinks Trump Tower could genuinely revive New York City, and that the brash developer she married could be a force for positive change. At least, she thinks that for a while.

You know the caricature of Trump. It’s possible that Trump himself has become a caricature. But Sebastian Stan does an excellent job of channeling the man Trump was in the 70s and 80s. It’s a smart and subtle performance, and Stan’s Trump is initially a sheltered rich kid awkwardly thrust into a world he doesn’t understand. He’s molded by a father obsessed with “toughness,” a New York City that operates on social Darwinism, and a mentor who embodies a kind of Satanic Henry Higgins. With influences like that, the kid never stood a chance. But Stan also shows Trump’s clumsy courtship with Ivana, and his conflicted feelings toward his older brother Freddy. Here, he’s not playing a monster, but he’s a man pushed in monstrous directions. Stan is partnered effectively with Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. Strong plays him almost as a cobra in human form, and at times, I thought he was moving his head in a reptilian imitation. His Cohn is utterly ruthless and willing to use anything to destroy the opposition. He’s also more invested in the friendship than Trump is, and Strong effectively sells Cohn’s betrayal and sadness when he’s heedlessly cast aside.

A person I know believes with her whole heart that Donald Trump is a devout Christian, a good man, an effective leader. Another person I know genuinely believes that Trump is evil incarnate, and was a catastrophically bad President. Neither of these people will be seeing The Apprentice. Should they? Perhaps, but my doubts are high that it would change minds. It’s not that nuance is in short supply, it’s that nuance is firmly, even violently rejected. When it comes to politics, that’s bad. When it comes to art? Even worse. I didn’t enjoy myself watching The Apprentice, and I can’t imagine watching it again. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a smart and sensitive portrayal of a person who’s made a massive impact on human history.

*There are still a few things Americans can broadly agree on, apparently.

**If you’re looking for a hardcore hagiography, please allow me to direct you to the Dennis Quaid-starring Reagan.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.