The Apprentice - Review: Sebastian Stan's Performance Trumps All

 

Biopics might be a dime a dozen in the film world nowadays, but that doesn’t mean that everyone likes them. Sometimes even their own subjects dislike them. For every big budget “authorized” feature, there’s plenty that are produced without the direct or “approved” involvement of their subjects. And it’s only sometimes because they aren’t around anymore. Thus is the case with “The Apprentice,” an aptly titled film from director Ali Abbasi (“Holy Spider,” “Border”) and writer Gabriel Sherman (“The Loudest Voice,” “Independence Day: Resurgence”) that tells the tale of exactly who you think it does. 

Set in New York City in the 1970s, the film follows a young Donald Trump, played by Sebastian Stan (“Captain America: Civil War,” “I, Tonya”), as he meets Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong (“Succession,” “The Big Short”), one of New York’s most infamous and despised lawyers. After agreeing to represent his family in the U.S. government’s lawsuit for discriminatory renting practices, Cohn takes Trump under his wing and begins to teach him about how he does business. Trump and Cohn slowly begin falling out as Trump meets his first wife Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova (“Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”), attempts to establish himself as a business magnate in New York City, with practices and a persona that Cohn sharply opposes. 

There’s a deep grunge to the film itself, as if the reels were dug out of a box in the back of someone’s abandoned 1980s office. It lends the film a voyeuristic complement, which allows the events to come across as if you’re watching abandoned home video footage. It fits perfectly with the era and vibe Abbasi is going for, and it even has elements of fuzz and altered post-processing to make things look even more dated. It’s a very smart choice, and it almost seems as if cinematographer Kasper Tuxen (“The Worst Person in the World,” “Beginners”) is running around to follow Stan and Strong around, camera in hand, adding a sense of guerilla filmmaking to the project. 

Stan’s performance is one of the film’s most interesting elements, arguably even more so than Strong’s. As the film progresses Stan slowly begins to morph into more of the modern-day interpretation of Trump. It’s almost like you’re watching a biopic-ified version of “Frankenstein,” as his exposure to Cohn’s mannerisms and personality begins to physically change him. It’s a layered and fantastic performance, one that never stoops to the realm of “SNL” impersonation. It’s all the same vocal ticks, mannerisms, and nuances you know, but in a remarkably subtle way.  

Strong’s performance is just as good, as if everything is a reverse vampirism situation. Yes, the film does take place during Cohn’s fight with AIDS, but the energy between Strong and Stan’s performances almost makes it seem as if Trump is sucking the life out of Cohn through his business tactics. As things go on and Cohn becomes more of a husk of a man, Strong maintains an uneasy dead-eyed nature that’s deeply disturbing and wonderfully engrossing. Somehow this pair has turned two of the world’s most vilified and impersonated men into roles that not only have deep effort and energy behind them but are also some of the best performances of their respective careers. 

Unfortunately, give the film and Sherman’s focus on Trump, there’s much less engrossing material for the rest of the tale. That’s not to say any of the other actors are bad or that the material is, but there’s just so much more focus on Trump and Cohn that the likes of Ivana and Trump’s father Fred fall into the background. Bakalova does the best she can with the material, and she does quite well, but by the time the film is over, she’s just faded into the background. Doubly so, Trump’s father, played by Martin Donovan (“Tenet,” “Insomnia (2002)”), and his mother Mary Anne, played by Catherine McNally (“Out of My Mind,” “Love in Whitbrooke”), who are in the film to add in a layer of cliche “disapproving father” material to the story before they virtually vanish from existence. To clarify, it's not that Ivana or Trump’s parents don’t play a pivotal role in this story, but it's that the film seems more interested in them as pawns in the tale rather than fully fleshed out characters. 

Maybe that’s part of the point, as those characterizations, coupled with the whirlwind nature of the thick, grainy film stock and cinematography, as well as Martin Dirkov’s (“Unmoored,” “Holy Spider”) boisterous musical score, give a vibe of a film that, like its lead character, is willing to bulldoze things down to tell its tale. It strikes the right balance between sensationalism and truth, and Abbasi’s tight control over the film means that it never wavers in its vision. It may be grimy and dirty and not for everyone, but it's also certainly not like your bog-standard, factory-made biopic of the last decade or so. 

“The Apprentice” is an entertaining and engrossing portrait of one of America’s most controversial figures. Not only does it communicate its points through the physical production methods, but with two insanely good lead performances as well. It’s worth it just to watch Stan’s slow evolution into this man and Strong’s transformation into Cohn. It’s just a shame that, for as interesting as the Trump and Cohn material is, the surrounding figures feel like more of an afterthought. 4/5