In 1973, Donald Trump was a hungry, awkward real estate heir from Queens looking for respect in New York. Not particularly smart, not particularly charming and with no solid plan to combat a federal lawsuit over the family company’s discrimination against Black tenants, the young Trump was fumbling toward his dream of opening a lavish hotel near Grand Central. That is, until he met Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s pugilistic prosecutor turned Richard Nixon confidant and political fixer, at a swanky New York club.
That’s the opening scene of The Apprentice, a new film out this month following a beleaguered journey to theaters. Written by Vanity Fair’s longtime Trump chronicler Gabriel Sherman and directed by the Iranian Danish film-maker Ali Abbasi, the film depicts the young Trump’s ascent in New York society in the 1970s and 80s via Cohn’s shameless tactics, as the lawyer’s health weakened due to HIV/Aids. The question dogging the film, starring a de-handsomed Sebastian Stan as Trump and Succession’s Jeremy Strong as Cohn, has been: does anyone want to watch a Trump movie? And after the film fizzled into a long period of distribution uncertainty following some positive reviews at the Cannes film festival in May – would anyone be able to watch it?
