The Apprentice

New York in the 1970s looks like it was filmed through a layer of cigarette smoke and expensive scotch, and Ali Abbasi (the director behind the intense Holy Spider) captures that grime with an oily precision that made me want to wash my hands the moment the credits rolled. There’s a specific kind of dread that permeates The Apprentice, a film that arrives not as a political hit piece or a standard biopic, but as a Frankenstein story where the monster eventually consumes the doctor. I watched this in a theater where the air conditioning was blasting so hard I had to wear my hood up like a suspicious extra in a spy thriller, which honestly felt appropriate for a movie about cold men doing cold things in shadowy clubs.

The Sorcerer and the Snake

At its heart, this is a two-hander about the most toxic mentorship in American history. Sebastian Stan takes on the unenviable task of playing a young Donald Trump, and he avoids the easy trap of doing a "Saturday Night Live" caricature. He starts the film as a stuttering, somewhat desperate social climber, a man who is clearly the "Fredo" of his family, constantly seeking approval from a father (Martin Donovan) who treats him like a disappointing balance sheet. Sebastian Stan plays the evolution beautifully; he begins with a soft-edged vulnerability and slowly hardens into the bronzed, wigged icon of the 80s, absorbing the mannerisms we know today like a sponge soaking up toxic waste.

But the film belongs to Jeremy Strong. As Roy Cohn—the ruthless attorney who sent the Rosenbergs to the electric chair and served as Joe McCarthy’s right hand—Jeremy Strong is terrifying. He plays Cohn with a lizard-like stillness, eyes that never seem to blink, and a mouth that only moves to deliver devastating, transactional truths. It’s a performance of immense restraint. While Sebastian Stan is the one transforming physically, Jeremy Strong transforms the very air in the room. He teaches Trump the "three rules" of his world: Attack, attack, attack; Admit nothing, deny everything; No matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat. It’s basically a masterclass in how to become a human migraine.

A Grimy Time Capsule

The production design is a character in itself. The film transitions from the grainy, 16mm look of the 70s to the garish, over-saturated video aesthetic of the 80s. It mirrors the shift in the characters—from the dark, wood-paneled desperation of the early days to the gold-leafed, cocaine-fueled hubris of the Trump Tower era. Ali Abbasi resists the urge to make this a "greatest hits" reel of headlines. Instead, he focuses on the small, petty cruelties.

One of the most effective threads involves Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump. Fresh off her breakout in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, she brings a sharp, pragmatic intelligence to Ivana. She isn't a victim; she’s an equal player in the game of status until the rules of the game change. The scenes between her and Sebastian Stan crackle with a weird, opportunistic chemistry that eventually curdles into something genuinely upsetting. The way this movie handles the "gold-plating" of the American Dream is more depressing than any horror movie I’ve seen this year.

The Struggle to Exist

In the current landscape of "safe" studio filmmaking, it’s a minor miracle The Apprentice even made it to a screen. This is a film that faced cease-and-desist letters from the real-life Trump campaign and saw its own primary financier—billionaire Dan Snyder—reportedly try to block its release because he didn't like the finished product. That kind of behind-the-scenes drama usually happens when a movie hits a nerve, and whether or not you agree with its perspective, you have to respect the grit it took for Ali Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman to push this through the festival circuit (it premiered at Cannes to a lengthy standing ovation) and into theaters during an election year.

Interestingly, Gabriel Sherman—who wrote the biography on Roger Ailes that became The Loudest Voice—doesn't write this as a comedy. There are moments of dark humor, sure, but the script is a tragedy about the death of empathy. It’s about how a young man with a modicum of ambition was molded by a man who viewed feelings as a structural weakness. By the time we see the surgical procedures and the scalpels, the metaphorical transformation into a creature of pure ego is already complete.

The film occasionally stumbles when it tries to lean too hard into foreshadowing—we don’t need every line to feel like a prophecy of 2016—but when it focuses on the psychological warfare between Cohn and Trump, it’s riveting. It’s a grim, fascinating look at the construction of a public persona. Whether you’re here for the history or the powerhouse performances, it’s a ride worth taking, even if you feel like you need a long shower afterward. Just don't expect a feel-good ending; this is a story about the rules of the world, and according to Roy Cohn, those rules are written in blood and billable hours.