The Apprentice

The Apprentice (2024) is set in New York in the seventies and eighties. A young property man works in his father's company and meets the lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn teaches him three rules: attack, admit nothing, and claim victory even when you lose. The second half is about the student outgrowing the teacher. Ali Abbasi directed. Sebastian Stan plays Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn. Both were nominated at the 97th Academy Awards, Stan for Lead Actor and Strong for Supporting Actor. Its release became a legal fight. The Trump 2024 campaign announced it would sue; communications director Steven Cheung called the film malicious defamation and said it should not see the light of day. On 24 May, Trump's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter seeking to block all marketing, distribution and publication of it. American distribution was therefore hard to find. The major studios stayed away fearing retaliation, and the film was eventually picked up by Briarcliff Entertainment and released on 11 October 2024. One of its financiers was the billionaire Dan Snyder, a Trump supporter. After watching a cut in February 2024 he was furious and tried to stop it. His company left the project in September, citing creative differences. It premiered at Cannes on 20 May 2024 to an eight minute standing ovation. On a 16 million dollar budget it grossed 17.3 million worldwide. It runs 122 minutes. Good for: political biography, the mechanics of power, and Jeremy Strong. Less good for: because it is a rise narrative you spend a long time sitting with its subject. It contains a sexual assault scene that has been argued about. The present political charge around the material makes it hard to judge on its own.