So what exactly is “The Apprentice,” and why is one of the two men running for President of the United States so mad about it that he and his team threatening a lawsuit (and releasing relatively incendiary statements)? Well, the title may clue you in considering that it’s a reference to Donald Trump’s NBC reality show of the same name and tells the story of Trump’s life as a major real-estate developer in Manhattan. Marvel Cinematic Universe mainstay Sebastian Stan plays the man himself, while Maria Bakalova — who earned an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” — plays his first wife, Ivana Trump (who, in real life, passed away in 2022). Jeremy Strong, the Emmy-winning Method actor who spent four seasons as Kendall Roy on “Succession,” also plays a major role as real-life figure Roy Cohn, the New York “fixer” who worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy and courted controversy until his death in 1986.
The movie definitely doesn’t paint Trump in a flattering light, according to early buzz from the Cannes Film Festival. When it premiered on the Croisette during the festival, moviegoers were appalled by a scene where Trump sexually assaults his wife Ivana, and elsewhere in the film, he has liposuction, gets a surgical procedure to deal with a bald spot on his head, and takes amphetamines. Trump may be threatening a lawsuit over the film, but it already got released despite strenous objections from one of its backers … so who knows if the former President’s legal action will actually go anywhere.
“The Apprentice” does not have a theatrical release date as of this writing.
