“Who is Donald Trump?”
If you’ve paid attention at any point in the last 40 years, you likely already have an answer in your head, informed by whatever political, economic, or moral leanings you subscribe to. “Who is Donald Trump?” isn’t an interesting question when you can turn on the television or open a social media app for the answer.
“Why is Donald Trump?” is a more intriguing question. For someone who warped the global sociopolitical landscape, it’s worth examining how Trump did it. Trump likely didn’t wake up one morning and randomly decided he would bloviate his way into infamy. He didn’t just step onto the world stage and profoundly disrupted decades of political precedent. Trump had to start from somewhere, but where exactly?
The Apprentice strives for the answer. The film follows the early days of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) before he became Donald Trump. In the 1970s, he was a more modest figure, a glorified rent collector for his father’s low-income apartments in Queens. The younger Trump had bigger ambitions than that, though. He wanted to transform a decrepit property next to Grand Central into a luxury hotel despite the area’s seedy aesthetics. His dreams are boosted significantly upon meeting Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the infamous lawyer best known for leading the McCarthy hearings. Entranced by Cohn’s casual tossing around of his power and influence, Trump seeks his help to fight a racial discrimination lawsuit against his family’s company. Intrigued by the fledgling, bumbling young man, Cohn takes him under his wing, teaching him the ways of his world, which amount to rampant amorality under the guise of preserving American liberty.
Cohn’s mentorship of Trump encompasses The Apprentice’s first half, which is the film at its most compelling. Director Ali Abassi captures Cohn’s New York through a gritty lens, in perpetually limited to low light, a stylistic reflection of the seedy world Cohn dominates and Trump aspires to. Through that lens, we see Trump as few have in the last four decades: bumbling, insecure, and, most importantly, quiet. Trump spends his time with Cohn observing a master of depraved cruelty at work. He’s slightly disturbed by the methods but ultimately convinced by the results. More familiar is Trump’s victim complex, albeit on a smaller scale. He complains that the government is unfairly targeting him, even though the evidence of racial discrimination is irrefutable. Cohn knows it too, but he shows Trump that the truth is malleable if you have the resources to mold it in your favor.
Abbasi signals that Cohn’s take-no-prisoners approach to business and politics didn’t naturally suit Trump. He tries on Cohn’s bravado for size a few times: in a phone interview with a New York Times reporter that Cohn arranged and during a pitch meeting with the CEO of Hyatt to get his financial support for his dream hotel. The fit is awkward (and uncomfortably funny) every time, even as Trump lies and manipulates more easily. There are signs that Trump isn’t too far down Cohn’s rabbit hole. His relationship with Ivana Zelníčková (Maria Bakalova) and his brother Fred Jr. (Charlie Carrick) are his ties to genuine affection. Zelníčková poses the greatest threat to Cohn’s influence, and he exerts his dominance with a pre-nuptial agreement. It leads to Trump running into the street to stop her from canceling the wedding.
It is after the wedding that The Apprentice loses its command of Trump. When we next see him in the glossy-looking mid-’80s, Trump has fully bought into the myth of his brilliance. This is the Trump that the world has come to know, with all of his bloviating excess and aggrieved cruelty. As Trump’s superficial success grows, his public and private behavior becomes more reprehensible, steamrolling and violating everyone in his path. Frustratingly, Abassi doesn’t interrogate why. The time skip also skips a large chunk of character development. There is no moment of introspection or inciting incident that flips the switch. It would be unnecessary if the film posited that Trump was so easily corruptible and craven. However, positioning Trump as having limits begs the question of when they stopped mattering to him. It leaves the film’s second half feeling rudderless, a barrage of provocation that’s more numbing than illuminating.
What stays illuminated throughout the film is its trio of central performances from Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, and Maria Bakalova. Stan is excellent as Trump, affording him a more nuanced take than we’ve seen from other portrayals (including Trump himself). He taps into Trump’s strong-man admiration, keen observation skills, self-victimization, and fear of weakness to craft a character that isn’t sympathetic but rather easier to understand. Stan’s most fascinating choice is to eschew caricature until the end, carefully, harrowingly charting the evolution of Trump’s artifice. Strong similarly disappears into Roy Cohn, embodying the lawyer’s distinct affectations and stone-cold, quietly vicious instinct. Strong’s most affecting work is in the second half, conveying Cohn’s horror at Trump’s devolution alongside his rapidly deteriorating health. Despite her limited role, Bakalova is revelatory, capturing Ivana’s clear-eyed ambition, humanity, and helpless resignation as the man she loves vanishes before her eyes.
So, why is Donald Trump? According to The Apprentice, the answer is Roy Cohn. The film makes a compelling case in its favor. It showcases with panache and style how the two men found kindred spirits in each other and preceded to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting populace. Yet, the answer feels too easy, especially from Abbasi’s vantage point. Does one man have all that power, or was there something in Trump that was easy to exploit, corrupt, and eventually lose control of? The lack of a definitive perspective on what would profoundly shift the world’s future leaves The Apprentice feeling less reflective and prescient than it means to be. We’ll have to find answers elsewhere.
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