Finally a good Trump film

Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, he has been portrayed on screen many times, but never particularly well.

For some unknown reason, Alec Baldwin was cast in his role Saturday Night Live for the entire Trump presidency. But even if Baldwin had been able to do a good Trump impression – he wasn’t – an actor is only as good as his script, and SNL Writers hate and fear Trump so much that they can’t seem to write a joke about him. That’s a shame, because Baldwin’s successor, James Austin Johnson, perfected Trump’s voice, cadence and mannerisms.

Then there was Our cartoon presidentthe animated series co-created by Stephen Colbert that ran on Showtime from 2018 to 2020 and portrayed Trump as bumbling and naive. The show’s comedy was more irreverent than SNL‘s, but still aimed at his #ResistanceLib audience – it was Family man but only for people who listen Pod Save America.

Showtime also gave us The Comey Rulea 2020 miniseries drama about the firing of FBI Director James Comey. It was terrible, and not just because it was based on Russiagate conspiracy theories that had been debunked a year earlier by the Mueller report. Trump, played by a completely miscast Brendan Gleeson in full monster makeup, was portrayed as the embodiment of pure evil, lurking in the shadows, making sinister phone calls and bullying Comey, played by an endlessly smug Jeff Daniels.

There are other examples, but suffice it to say that for eight years it seemed like no one on TV was getting to the point of Trump – he could be a villain or a jerk, but nothing else.

But last week that changed with the release of Ali Abbasi’s film: The apprentice –which Trump actually tried to block. Ironically, because The apprentice has achieved the one thing that all previous filmmakers have failed to do: portray Donald Trump as a man. Not a good man, but a real, a complex character, a human being.

The film centers on Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn, the murderous lawyer and political operative who rose to prominence as Joseph McCarthy’s top legal adviser during the Second Red Scare. The film begins with the two men meeting. The year is 1973 and the federal government is investigating claims that real estate mogul Fred Trump discriminated against black tenants. Fred’s son and employee Donald (Sebastian Stan) desperately tries to get the situation under control. In his moment of crisis, the soft-spoken, insecure young businessman meets Cohn, who advises him to sue the government and gives young Donald “three rules”: always attack, never admit wrongdoing and always claim victory.

The two grow closer and closer, with Cohn acting as a kind of surrogate father for the young Trump. Over time, Donald internalizes the “three rules” and his personality slowly morphs into a more bombastic version of Cohn’s. He becomes more ruthless, arrogant and cruel – the “murderer” Roy told him he was.

He begins to suppress all aspects of personality that could be seen as weakness. After his brother dies, he sobs briefly before becoming angry at his wife Ivana’s attempts to comfort him. The marriage collapses, culminating in a controversial rape scene – inspired by allegations Ivana made during the couple’s divorce proceedings and later recanted – which led to Trump’s campaign threatening legal action. Other events in the film do not appear to be controversial. In fact, Roger Stone — a longtime friend of Trump and Cohn who is briefly portrayed in the film — said that Jeremy Strong’s portrayal of Cohn was “uncanny in its accuracy.”

But ultimately, this isn’t really a film about Trump or Cohn, but rather it’s about what happens when you suppress your humanity in the pursuit of power. Eventually, even Cohn is appalled by Trump’s cruelty and tells him so. Trump tells him he “learned from the best.”

The apprentice is an utterly compelling and utterly human story about how power corrupts; it could be anyone. But unfortunately it’s about Trump, which is a shame because that means most Americans will hate it – either because they love Trump and he comes across as brutal, or because they hate him so much they can’t stand to watch him portrayed as anything but a monster.

On Monday, Trump himself described The apprentice as a “cheap, defamatory and politically repugnant hatchet.”

There is no doubt that Abbasi finds Trump abhorrent, but The apprentice don’t demonize him. People who prefer their cartoons simply don’t like them for that very reason. For example, a recent comment The Washington Post criticized Stan’s portrayal of Trump: “Actors are always looking for one Soul. . . But searching for a soul in Trump is a fool’s errand. Stan sets out to find a treasure that doesn’t seem to exist.” The critic prefers Gleeson’s superficial portrayal of Trump The Comey Rule because “Gleeson doesn’t try to humanize Trump any more than you would humanize the tornadoes.” Twister.”

In other words, a film released a month before the election showing Trump raping his ex-wife isn’t damning enough because it gently suggests that he might have a soul. If that’s the left’s complaint, then it would be the right’s The apprentice is a hit, which is fair. But what a beautiful hit piece it is.

River Page is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow him on X @River_Is_Nice and read his article “Will Ferrell’s trans documentary is surprisingly moving.”

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