Cannes 2024: A new film about Donald Trump has had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, attracting mostly good reviews from critics but a legal threat from the former president.
Titled “The Apprentice”, the biopic traces Mr Trump’s origin story as an ambitious young property developer in 1970s and 80s New York.
His spokesman described the film, which features a scene where he is seen raping his first wife Ivana, as “garbage”, “pure fiction” and “election interference by Hollywood elites”.
The movie begins with a disclaimer that many of its events are fictionalised.
The premiere at Cannes comes as Mr Trump’s hush-money trial continues in New York, while he gears up for another presidential election in November.
The title is partly a reference to the TV series Mr Trump fronted for more than a decade from 2004.
However, the film takes place several decades earlier, as Mr Trump is making his name as a real estate developer.
Cast of the film
Sebastian Stan, who has appeared in Pam & Tommy, Dumb Money and several MCU films as Winter Soldier, portrays the former president.
Succession star Jeremy Strong plays his ruthless mentor and lawyer Roy Cohn.
According to news agency AFP, the film “paints an unflinching but nuanced portrait of the former US president”.
The film, said to feature “rape, erectile dysfunction, baldness and betrayal”, starts out with a sympathetic potrayal of a headstrong but naive social climber.
As it progresses, however, the movie charts Mr Trump’s “decency being eroded as he learns the dark arts of dealmaking and tastes power”.
Director’s Response
Its director, Iranian-Danish film-maker Ali Abbasi, imagines several brutal events taking place behind closed doors. In one harrowing scene, Mr Trump is seen raping Ivana.
During their real-life divorce proceedings, Ivana accused Mr Trump of raping her, although she later retracted the allegation. She died in 2022.
Speaking to Vanity Fair before the premiere, Abbasi had said the aim was “to do a punk rock version of a historical movie… [not] get too anal about details and what’s right and what’s wrong”.
The movie received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening in Cannes, but Trump’s campaign communications director Steven Cheung said legal action would be taken “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers”.
“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalises lies that have been long debunked,” he added in a statement.
“This is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”
In response, Abbasi told reporters in Cannes, “Donald’s team should wait to watch the movie before they start suing us.
“I don’t necessary think this is a movie that he would dislike… I think he would be surprised.”
The premiere of The Apprentice at the French film festival on Monday came while Mr Trump is on trial in Manhattan.
He denies falsifying business records to cover up a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and any sexual “The Apprentice,” the story of the 45th and possibly 47th president’s early years as a real estate developer, earned a eight-minute standing ovation on Monday.
It’s probably safe to assume that the film festival crowd isn’t a MAGA-heavy one, so it helps that “The Apprentice” paints a blistering portrait, focusing on Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn, the McCarthy-ite lawyer and fixer who took an interest in the “the Donald” before he was a household name.
The movie is certainly explosive. It portrays Trump as a striver, who falls under Cohn’s influence as he struggles to deal with a racial discrimination lawsuit from the Justice Department over how his family real estate business treats Black applicants for its apartment complex. There’s a lot in here that should upset Trump and his supporters.
He’s depicted raping Ivana, abusing amphetamines in order to lose weight (then getting tummy tug with a hair implants chaser), and cutting deals with underworld figures so Trump Tower can move forward as planned.
He also fails to pay bills and makes a bad bet on a Jersey City casino (so much for “The Art of the Deal”).
There’s also a scene where Cohn grips Trump’s leg suggestively under the table that may not play so well at the Mar-a-Lago screening room.
