LE MONDE'S OPINION – A MUST SEE
Created in 2004 on the American network NBC, the reality show The Apprentice, produced and hosted by Donald Trump, saw a group of candidates eager to join the company's executive ranks duke it out while residing for a week in Trump Tower. There, the big boss himself was tasked with eliminating the candidates one by one before the last remaining applicant was bestowed the Holy Grail. Made famous not so much for its celebration of the winners as for its humiliation of the losers, his expression "you're fired" became notorious, while the show revealed its true purpose: pure product placement for the guest entrepreneur.
Since this philosophy is not just about business but life itself, and hence about life as business, it made sense to give the same name to a film that purports to shed some light on Trump's formative years and his decisive 1980s relationship with the corrupt, ultraconservative lawyer Roy Cohn (1927-1986). Directed by Iranian-born Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi from a screenplay by American political scientist Gabriel Sherman, The Apprentice is not a traditional biopic relying on exhaustive mimicry. Instead, it's what might be called a conceptual biopic, built around a key concept and a slice of life that captures the essence of a celebrity and his destiny.
The film begins in the 1970s. Trump (Sebastian Stan) is a discreet, almost dull young man who still collects rent door-to-door in the grim tenements owned by his father, who made his fortune in real estate. Donald, convinced that New York's decay at the time should be exploited to lay the foundations for a completely gentrified city, dreams of moving up a gear. His chance encounter with Cohn (Jeremy Strong) will help him do just that. This man of ill repute – legal adviser to Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957) in the 1950s, devoted servant of the neoconservatives, close to the Mafia, shameful Jew and homosexual, shady lawyer, terror of the bar known for his shameless methods – takes a liking to Donald. He becomes the family group's lawyer, using his influential network of contacts to save them from an embarrassing case of racial discrimination.
The film then turns into a story of apprenticeship, tragedy and morality. Cohn acts as a substitute father for young Donald, taking the place of Fred Trump (1905-1999), disqualified from this role because of his distrust of his son and his old-fashioned methods. But this second father is a perverted role model, teaching him contempt for the law, unscrupulousness, greed and the religion of the balance of power relationships and victory. His pupil does such a good job assimilating these lessons that they end up being turned against the one who taught them. A classic arc. The entire second half of the film, during which we see Trump consolidate his fortune in the 1980s, is about the abandonment and symbolic killing of his mentor, who was secretly dying of AIDS.
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