‘The Apprentice’ Lacks Perspective and Point
Sebastian Stan masters the mannerisms of the megalomaniacal former president, but The Apprentice lacks perspective and a point.
The discourse around director Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice will likely be exhausting, but not because the film makes any strong statements about Donald Trump. In fact, the story seems determined to humanize the controversial figure, presenting him as both an inevitable product of the ‘80s “greed is good” mentality and an ambitious young man striving to impress his wealthy father. It’s…a choice.
The story primarily revolves around Trump’s friendship with mentor Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who teaches him the three keys to success that will go on to form Trump’s entire personality: always attack, admit nothing and deny everything, claim victory and never admit defeat. Anyone surviving in the political climate for the past eight years can see how those beliefs have manifested and what impact they’ve had on the world, but the film isn’t particularly interested in any of that.
This is an origin story of sorts about Trump absorbing knowledge and stepping on anyone to succeed. It presents him as wide-eyed and eager to learn, then shrewd and cunning, then selfish and malicious, but it never really says anything we don’t already know. Likewise, with Cohn, we really don’t learn much that couldn’t be gleaned from a quick browse of Wikipedia. Even the fantastic Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump isn’t given more to do than be a trophy and later a victim.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the “message” is that he didn’t start out this way but becomes a person who will do anything to succeed—even lying that he succeeded when it’s clear he didn’t.
While presenting Trump as a multifaceted person is an admirable goal—a movie where he’s merely a cartoonish villain would probably be pretty boring—it’s not exactly something I want to sit through. So despite how impressive Stan’s performance is, and it truly is, I struggle to get invested in the story.
Much of the time, it suffers from the “and then” issue that fails to make the screenplay by writer Gabriel Sherman feel more compelling. Things just sort of happen because they’re based on a real story, but beyond strong performances, nothing else really pulls the audience in.
With such a polarizing figure, it’s difficult to determine who this movie is really for. Surely Trump diehards won’t like the way he begins as a sniveling loser and then goes full-on rapist by the end. And hardcore liberals who expect to see a thorough roast won’t be satiated either. In the end, The Apprentice feels like a hollow exercise in futility that doesn’t deliver on its promises, and maybe that’s the real message.
