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The Apprentice review – Jeremy Strong is the Trump card in measured biopic of the Donald

The Succession star chills as US lawyer Roy Cohn opposite Sebastian Stan as his grasping protege Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s intriguing drama

I t’s not quite an ultra-villain origin story. But nor is Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice in any way a flattering depiction of its subject, the young(ish) Donald Trump (a horribly convincing Sebastian Stan). The film follows Trump’s early journey, starting as “Little Donnie”, the browbeaten second son of an overbearing father who scoffs that his boy “needs all the help he can get”. But, as the film tells it, the young Donald finds a second father figure in the well-connected and widely feared rightwing lawyer Roy Cohn ( Succession star Jeremy Strong , bringing his trademark unblinking gimlet intensity to the performance, with chilling effect). The lessons learned from his mentor – chicanery, bluster, vanity and the need to win at all costs – shaped the Trump we know today.

It would have been easy to make Trump into a monster or a ridiculous figure of fun, and since Abbasi, who previously made the Iranian serial killer movie Holy Spider , isn’t known for his subtlety, it’s surprising and even a little disappointing that The Apprentice doesn’t go all in on the grotesque and extreme aspects of the Trumpian evolution. But it does show a side of the former US president that, you suspect, he would prefer not to be seen. This Trump is an unexpectedly weak and malleable figure; an impressionable man who mistakes bullying for strength and views power as something to be weaponised. Not surprisingly, Trump is irked by the depiction. His lawyers sent an unsuccessful cease-and-desist letter to the producers shortly after its premiere in Cannes in May, and last week on social media Trump described the film as a “ politically disgusting hatchet job ”. While a touch more savagery might have been satisfying for some sections of the audience, the fact the Donald has worked himself into a frothing, impotent rage about the film suggests that it must be doing something right.

The action opens in the battle-scarred New York of the 1970s. The young Donald is a hungry and ambitious small player on a big stage. He has plans to take over a derelict hotel in the blighted no man’s land of Manhattan’s Midtown. But so far, his father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), is dismissive of his son’s vision, preferring to employ Donald’s talents as a glorified rent collector for his down-at-heel Trump Village housing complex in Coney Island. Abbasi captures the character of the city with plenty of grainy shots of burning rubbish and yawning smashed windows. There’s jittery, amphetamine nerviness to the camerawork – as if whoever is behind the lens is half expecting to be mugged or stabbed.

Insulated by his father’s name, Donald is unfazed by the edginess of his city, his eyes firmly fixed on a gilded future of which he intends to be a significant part. To this end he rubbernecks at the rich and famous at a Manhattan members’ club (“They say I’m the youngest person ever admitted,” he brags to a bored blond woman), hoping to soak up their influence by osmosis. He catches the cold, shark-eyed gaze of Cohn, who invites him into an inner circle populated by the great and the not remotely good: smirking mafioso big shots, political power brokers and Rupert Murdoch.

Having untangled the Trump Organization’s knotty legal woes in his inimitable way, Cohn sets about moulding young Donald into a winner. He rattles off his three rules for success. No 1: attack, attack, attack. No 2: admit nothing, deny everything. No 3: always claim victory, never admit defeat. Donnie gazes at him like a newly hatched chick imprinting on its mother; he swallows Cohn’s wisdom whole and turns it into a personality. And with an All About Eve -style inevitability, the protege usurps the mentor and a force is unleashed.

Of the key central characters, Trump is arguably the least interesting – or at least the one who is still not fully formed. In contrast, his first wife, Ivana ( Maria Bakalova , excellent), knows exactly who she is. Abbasi gives her the musical motif of Baccara’s disco stomper Yes Sir, I Can Boogie, which is slightly misleading: Ivana is an aspiring businesswoman with city-sized ambitions. You get the sense that any boogying will be done on her own terms. And that she never called any man “sir”.

Most intriguing is Strong’s slippery portrayal of Cohn – a man full of sharp edges and wide, swinging contradictions. He was a closeted homosexual who, when he worked alongside Senator Joseph McCarthy, tirelessly persecuted the gay population. He’s depicted as someone who gets misty-eyed with pent-up emotion when he talks about his love for the US, but who despises huge swaths of the American population. And, the film argues, Cohn’s pernicious, far-reaching influence on the country he professed to serve is all too evident today, nearly 40 years after his death.

In UK and Irish cinemas

• Wendy Ide's film of the week
• Donald Trump
• Jeremy Strong
• Drama films

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The Guardian

A high school swim champion with a troubled past enrolls in the U.S. Coast Guard's "A" School, where legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall teaches him some hard lessons about loss, love, and ... Read all A high school swim champion with a troubled past enrolls in the U.S. Coast Guard's "A" School, where legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall teaches him some hard lessons about loss, love, and self-sacrifice. A high school swim champion with a troubled past enrolls in the U.S. Coast Guard's "A" School, where legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall teaches him some hard lessons about loss, love, and self-sacrifice.

• Andrew Davis
• Ron L. Brinkerhoff
• Kevin Costner
• Ashton Kutcher
• 326 User reviews
• 118 Critic reviews
• 53 Metascore
• 1 win & 4 nominations

Top cast 99+

• Ben Randall

• Jake Fischer

• Helen Randall

• Emily Thomas

• Capt. William Hadley

• Carl Billings

• Co-Pilot Wakefield
• (as Lcdr. Daniel J. Molthen USCG)
• Pilot Mitchell
• (as Lt. Andrew Schanno USCG)
• Benjamin Reyes

• Co-Pilot Antunez
• Julian Zankich
• (as PO1 Gary Billburg USCG)
• Mitcheltree
• (as PO2 Joshua Mitcheltree USCG)
• Ops Commander
• (as CPO Andrea Martynowski USCG)
• (as Lt. Ron Fien USCG)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The opening story of the helo rescue gone bad was loosely based on a real event that occurred August 7, 1981. The crew of CG1471 from Airsta Kodiak was responding to a distress call of a fishing vessel near Prince William Sound. As the crew attempted to hoist the survivors of the boat, a wave hit the tail of CG1471 causing the helo to crash into the seas. A painting named "So Others May Live" hangs on CG Airsta Kodiak depicting the rescue.
• Goofs (at around 1h 12 mins) The "Squid Bar" Hodges and Fisch go to is filled with Sailors in the utility uniforms, along with various officers and chiefs. Sailors are not allowed to drink in the utility uniform or even go into a bar.

Ben Randall : Ya know, there never was anyone else Mag's.

Maggie McGlone : Like hell, Ben, you're a bigamist. You've been married to the coast guard all along. Now gimme that shoulder. Prolly swum it out of socket tryin to prove you was still nineteen.

Ben Randall : When the heck did we get old?

Maggie McGlone : Hell, I've always been old Ben. Ya' know what though, I don't mind. I mean if my muscles ache, it's because I've used 'em. It's hard for me to walk up them steps now, its 'cuz I walked up 'em every night to lay next to a man who loved me. I got a few wrinkles here and there, but I've layed under thousands of skies with sunny days. I look and feel this way, well cuz I drank and I smoked. I lived and I loved, danced, sang, sweat and screwed my way thorough a pretty damn good life if you ask me. Getting old ain't bad Ben. Getting old, that's earned.

• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: The Departed/Open Season/The Guardian/The Last King of Scotland/The Queen/School for Scoundrels/Beerleague (2006)
• Soundtracks Saturday Night Written by Willy Abers, Raul Pacheco , Justin Poree , Asdru Sierra (as Asdru Sierra), Jiro Yamaguchi , Ulises Bella and J. Smith-Freedman Performed by Ozomatli Courtesy of Concord Music Group, Inc.

User reviews 326

• TheMovieMark
• Sep 28, 2006
• How long is The Guardian? Powered by Alexa
• Is the training in the movie the same of that in real life?
• Did Ben Randall survive?
• September 29, 2006 (United States)
• United States
• Guardianes de altamar
• Elizabeth City, North Carolina, USA
• Touchstone Pictures
• Beacon Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $70,000,000 (estimated)
• $55,011,732
• $18,006,064
• Oct 1, 2006
• $94,973,540

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 19 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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The Guardians

Like a series of Monet paintings come to life, the historical drama “The Guardians” luxuriates in lush, widescreen images of the French countryside. World War I is raging elsewhere, but this segment of the country remains unspoiled and fertile—thanks to the hard work of the women who’ve been left behind to manage the family farm while their husbands, brothers and sons are off fighting, and sometimes not coming back.

Director and co-writer Xavier Beauvois takes his time introducing us to this place and these people. His pace is unhurried, allowing us to breathe in and appreciate the beauty of the painterly light as it bathes the trees, wheat fields and hillsides in a colorful glow (the work of cinematographer Caroline Champetier , who also shot “ Holy Motors ” and Beauvois’ “ Of Gods and Men ”). We catch a glimpse of the horrors of war at the very beginning as he pans silently across a battlefield, with lifeless bodies strewn about in the mist. But Beauvois is far more interested in how the loved ones of those men struggle to continue living. He has made an intimate epic, as contradictory as that sounds.

The director, who currently has a juicy supporting role as Juliette Binoche ’s arrogant, married lover in “ Let the Sunshine In ,” is far more respectful and appreciative here of the many crucial roles women play. And in Nathalie Baye , Laura Smet and newcomer Iris Bry , he has three very different actresses through whom to explore the film’s themes. (Beauvois wrote the script with Marie-Julie Maille and Frederique Moreau, based on Ernest Perochon ’s 1924 novel “Les Guardiennes.”)

Part of the allure of “The Guardians” comes from the casting: The radiant, real-life mother and daughter Baye and Smet play mother and daughter Hortense and Solange. The year is 1915, and both of Hortense’s sons have been away at war, as has Solange’s husband. All three men come and go over the course of the film, but the ladies require more consistent help year-round, with dreams of modernizing their operation looming wistfully in the distance. (This may be a spoiler, but you’ll never see another movie featuring not one but two scenes of characters reacting joyfully to the arrival of a tractor.)

They get some much-needed assistance when the bank in the nearby village sends them 20-year-old farm laborer Francine (Bry) instead of the loan they’d sought to buy new equipment. With her blazing red hair and milky, fair skin against a backdrop of the farmhouse’s bright blue door, Francine stands out from the moment she arrives, and she’ll eventually serve as the catalyst that shakes things up for the whole family. (You could think of “The Guardians” as a really sad, really slow version of “Tully.”)

Francine takes her cues from the steely Hortense: milking the cows in the morning, harvesting wheat in the afternoon and casting seeds about at dusk. When winter comes, she splits logs in the blindingly sunlit snow. Beauvois lingers over the minutiae of these moments, allowing us to focus on the arduousness and monotony of the tasks, with the sounds of the work creating a rhythm. If you’re interested in movies about process, or people doing their jobs well, you’ll be enthralled.

When the men do return on leave for brief periods, they don’t speak of the violence they’ve endured, but they’re clearly changed. “The Germans are people like us,” Solange’s husband, Clovis ( Olivier Rabourdin ), informs his family over dinner—teachers and farmers like them.

But the more dramatic shift in the film occurs with the return of Hortense’s hunky, flirty son Georges ( Cyril Descours ), who takes an instant interest in Francine. Quiet but confident, she initially won’t succumb to his advances, even though he’s using every trick in the book to seduce her: “I’m leaving  tomorrow . I may not come back.”

A romance eventually blossoms between Francine and Georges, though, as the years pass. (The title card for 1917 is especially striking with its purple, misty sense of melancholy.) And the melodrama that ultimately accompanies it becomes the film’s downfall. While it’s fascinating to watch Francine as she ages and claims her feminine strength, the flimsy misunderstandings and hurt feelings that come to characterize her—and her relationship with Georges—grow tedious. Along those lines, a slow-motion nightmare of war violence that plagues Georges in his sleep feels out of place compared to the understated calm that marks the rest of the film.

Still, “The Guardians” maintains an underlying focus on humanity, in all its complications during a time of great distress. You think people are deeply decent but then they completely botch the handling of something important. Everyone is damaged and the rules no longer apply. That messiness is interesting.

And Bry has a consistently beguiling screen presence. With expressive looks reminiscent of a silent film star, she has a clarity and a directness about her that are hugely appealing. You know her character will find her way in the world, even when the film loses its own.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Iris Bry as Francine
• Nicolas Giraud as Constant Sandrail
• Cyril Descours as Georges
• Laura Smet as Solange
• Nathalie Baye as Hortense
• Mathilde Viseux as Marguerite
• Gilbert Bonneau as Henri
• Olivier Rabourdin as Clovis

Cinematographer

• Caroline Champetier

Writer (novel)

• Ernest Perochon
• Frédérique Moreau
• Marie-Julie Maille
• Xavier Beauvois
• Michel Legrand

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

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Watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 with a subscription on Disney+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

A galactic group hug that might squeeze a little too tight on the heartstrings, the final Guardians of the Galaxy is a loving last hurrah for the MCU's most ragtag family.

Taking the team in a darker direction without sacrificing heart or humor, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ends the trilogy on an entertaining high note.

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