The Apprentice (Movie)

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      Trump Biopic Hits Cannes Film Festival: ’The Apprentice’

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      The film covers Donald J. Trump’s relationships with the fixer Roy Cohn and his first wife, Ivana, and tries to explain the future president, at least as a young man.Would Donald J. Trump enjoy Cannes? It’s possible, since the extravagant displays of wealth here — all the yachts and glamour — are typically his thing.But would Cannes enjoy Donald J. Trump?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’s premiere of “The Apprentice,” starring Sebastian Stan as a young Trump.Directed by Ali Abbasi (“Border,” “Holy Spider”) 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’s 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’t they spark to each other? On one visit, Trump hops out of a car emblazoned with the license plate “DJT” and sees that Cohn’s own plate reads “RMC.” Game recognizes game.The closeted Cohn character has complicated reasons for keeping Trump close: There’s a one-sided attraction there, and when giving Trump an expensive suit, he tells the younger man, “If you look like a million bucks, I look like a million bucks.” 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’s modus operandi: Always be on the attack, deny everything and never admit defeat.But in its own way, theirs is a “Star Is Born” dynamic: As Trump rises, Cohn falls on harder times, and the protégé 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’t be dispatched from his high-flying life quite so easily.Is the movie sympathetic to Trump? Not exactly, though it labors to at least explain him. At first, Stan’s performance feels surprisingly toned down: Though young Trump is certainly full of himself, he seems more abashed in Cohn’s 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. “The Apprentice” suggests he’s little more than a MAGA magpie, stealing his famous “Make America Great Again” phrase from a Reagan operative and even modeling his orange complexion on Cohn, who liked to tan himself to a radioactive umber.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cannes Film Festival: 5 Things to Look For

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      With the most prestigious festival in the world starting Tuesday, here are the movies, artists and events we’ll be keeping an eye on.On Tuesday, the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will begin in the south of France. You can expect glamorous gowns and awfully prolonged standing ovations — at Cannes, such things are de rigueur — but what distinguishes this year’s lineup? Here are five things we’ll be watching out for.A new Coppola on the Croisette.Some 45 years after Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, he will return to the Croisette, the festival promenade, with “Megalopolis,” starring Adam Driver as a visionary architect determined to rebuild a city after it’s beset by disaster. Coppola self-financed the longtime passion project to the tune of $120 million, a steep price tag that has so far deterred potential distributors. Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported that at a March screening meant to entice buyers, many came away confounded by Coppola’s vision: “There are zero commercial prospects and good for him,” said one source. But if it’s true that the film is a big, wild swing, it’s hard to imagine a friendlier place for its public debut than Cannes, where the filmmaker is revered.‘Furiosa’ starts its engines.The biggest movie to debut at Cannes this year will be “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” the latest film in director George Miller’s postapocalyptic action franchise. This one serves as a prequel to the Oscar-winning “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which premiered at Cannes to great acclaim in 2015 and produced an unexpected moment at the film’s news conference when star Tom Hardy apologized to Miller for his bad behavior during the shoot. Expect a big bash for the new movie and a major red-carpet moment from its fashionable star Anya Taylor-Joy, who takes over the titular character originated by Charlize Theron.A cinematic Trump card.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More