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Would Donald J. Trump enjoy Cannes? It\u2019s possible, since the extravagant displays of wealth here \u2014 all the yachts and glamour \u2014 are typically his thing.<\/p>\n
But would Cannes enjoy Donald J. Trump?<\/p>\n
You might be tempted to say no, since the Cannes Film Festival draws the sort of liberal-leaning artists that reliably vote against the former president and his allies. But that clash of sensibilities lent a frisson to Monday\u2019s premiere of \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d starring Sebastian Stan as a young Trump.<\/p>\n
Directed by Ali Abbasi (\u201cBorder<\/a>,\u201d \u201cHoly Spider<\/a>\u201d) and written by the author Gabriel Sherman, this origin story of sorts begins with Trump in his late 20s as he aspires to greatness but mostly putters around collecting overdue rent for his father\u2019s real estate company. (One angry tenant responds by hurling a pot of boiling water at him.) Trump is a man in need of a mentor, and he finds it in the lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who takes an immediate liking to this young striver. And why wouldn\u2019t they spark to each other? On one visit, Trump hops out of a car emblazoned with the license plate \u201cDJT\u201d and sees that Cohn\u2019s own plate reads \u201cRMC.\u201d Game recognizes game.<\/p>\n The closeted Cohn character has complicated reasons for keeping Trump close: There\u2019s a one-sided attraction there, and when giving Trump an expensive suit, he tells the younger man, \u201cIf you look like a million bucks, I look like a million bucks.\u201d But mostly, he sees Trump as an appreciative vessel for his lessons in venality. Cohn teaches him how to use dirty tricks to succeed in business and imparts three rules that will become Trump\u2019s modus operandi: Always be on the attack, deny everything and never admit defeat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But in its own way, theirs is a \u201cStar Is Born\u201d dynamic: As Trump rises, Cohn falls on harder times, and the prot\u00e9g\u00e9 who was once so easily impressed now seems sickened to spend time with someone no longer on his level. By the time we reach the 1980s, Trump has married his first wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), and broken ground on his crowning real estate achievement, Trump Tower. Still, Cohn won\u2019t be dispatched from his high-flying life quite so easily.<\/p>\n Is the movie sympathetic to Trump? Not exactly, though it labors to at least explain him. At first, Stan\u2019s performance feels surprisingly toned down: Though young Trump is certainly full of himself, he seems more abashed in Cohn\u2019s outsize presence. But as Trump gets hooked on success (and speedlike diet pills), Stan transforms into the man we know today, who leads with bluster and arrogance. \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d suggests he\u2019s little more than a MAGA magpie, stealing his famous \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d phrase from a Reagan operative and even modeling his orange complexion on Cohn, who liked to tan himself to a radioactive umber.<\/p>\n But will audiences want to watch a movie about Trump in a year when the former president\u2019s re-election bid and multiple trials continue to dominate headlines?<\/p>\n I spoke with buyers who worried that the film could end up in a sort of no man\u2019s land where liberal audiences aren\u2019t inclined to see it and conservative moviegoers will rail against its depiction of Trump. Already, one of the film\u2019s financiers has allegedly tried to thwart the release of \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d: Variety reported<\/a> that the former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder, a friend of Trump\u2019s, was incensed after watching an early cut of the film that he perceived to be unflattering to the former president. (Kinematics, one of the companies backing the film, denied that Snyder was involved.)<\/p>\n A scene in which Trump sexually assaults Ivana was said to be a sticking point for Snyder, and will surely be one of the film\u2019s most talked-about moments. In it, Trump rebuffs his wife when she tries to seduce him and bluntly confesses that he\u2019s no longer attracted to her. But when she begins to disparage his looks in return, Trump angrily throws her to the ground and assaults her. (Though Ivana accused Trump of rape<\/a> during their divorce deposition, she walked back the claim<\/a> in 1993; she died in 2022.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At press time, \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d had not yet found a distributor, but a gutsy studio could run an attention-getting awards campaign for Stan and Strong. That could mitigate some of the potential audience apathy, though it does pose an awards-season conundrum: For once, can Hollywood\u2019s liberal left be encouraged to vote for<\/em> Trump?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n