As word spread via countless headlines in recent weeks that The Apprentice is the film that Donald Trump doesn’t want you to see, suffice it to say that curiosity was piqued: What’s in it that’s so bad that he doesn’t want us to see it???
The saying is true: All press really is good press, something that Trump and his camp should know but may have briefly forgotten when they reacted to the Venice Film Festival premiere of the biopic last month by condemning it as “election interference by Hollywood elites” that belonged “in a dumpster fire” and threatening a lawsuit to block its release. I can speak for myself and for the exhausting number of people in my life who have screamed “HAVE YOU SEEN IT?!?!” into my face over the last few weeks when I say that such censuring of the film only intensified the desire to see it.
I spoke with The Apprentice director Ali Abbasi earlier this week. He admitted that he’s “obviously not naive” and knew that some choice scenes in the film would be controversial. But he also was adamant that this is not a hit piece with a pointed political agenda, despite its release just weeks before the presidential election. He said that, if he watches the film, Trump “would instinctively see the difference between this and many other pieces that have been trying to be for or against him in a partisan or political way.”
To wit, a plane towing a banner that read, “TRUMP: GO SEE THE APPRENTICE FRIDAY!” flew over his rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.
Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan
Pief WeymanThe Apprentice chronicles Trump’s unscrupulous rise in the New York City business world in the ’70s and ’80s, focusing on his relationship with notorious lawyer Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong), who manipulated an insecure, but ambitious wannabe power player until he had mastered the art of wheeling and dealing in moral—and, it turns out, financial—bankruptcy. As such, the film’s portrayal of Trump and Cohn is unflinching. As much as The Apprentice is a horror story—a Frankenstein-esque making of a monster—it’s a tragedy. Sebastian Stan’s Donald Trump reveals a man corrupted because he was ready and willing to be.
So… what’s the juice? What’s all the hullabaloo about? Now that film’s out in theaters, here’s a rundown of the most shocking, controversial scenes. Suffice to say: Spoilers ahead.
The rape scene
This is the part of the movie that made instant headlines and caused Trump supporters to suspect the film is a hit job. Toward the end of the film, Trump’s wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova) gifts him a copy of the book The G Spot in hopes of reigniting their sexual spark. He responds by telling her he’s not attracted to her anymore. Offended, she calls him fat and ugly and says he’s getting bald.
He then throws her to the ground and dives on top of her. While she screams for him to stop, he starts having sex with her from behind. The sequence is based on Ivana’s account in her 1993 book The Lost Tycoon.
Maria Bakalova
Pief WeymanTrump’s sexual escapades—and impotence
While recruiting Trump to be one of his new mentees-cum-lackeys, Roy Cohn flatters him, calling him “gorgeous, a real thoroughbred,” telling him, “I bet you f--- a lot, don’t you, Donald? You look like somebody who f---s a lot.”
Trump’s meet-cute with Ivana is actually very sweet. When she and her friends are being turned away from a private club, he vouches for them. He pays for their meal, gives them a ride home, and bombards Ivana with gifts and attention until she starts dating him—even though she already has a boyfriend. He even flies to Aspen to flirt with her while she’s there on a modeling shoot. The film shows an explicit sex scene of them early in their courtship, with Trump on a chair and Ivana naked and riding him.
Later in the movie, Trump is getting a blow job from a woman who is not Ivana, but he stops it because he’s overwhelmed and presumably can’t get it up. Later at a plastic surgery consult, a doctor warns him that amphetamines he’s taking cause erectile dysfunction, which he immediately scoffs at in a “thou doth protest too much” fashion.
Toward the end of the film, when the idea of entering politics is floated to him, Trump says, “I’d love a blow job on Air Force One.”
The prenup
When Ivana rebuffs the aggressive prenup that Cohn forces Trump to serve her, she storms out of the meeting refusing to sign, just days before the wedding. (Cohn also previously warned Trump not to get married.)
Trump chases her into the street and offers $50,000 to sign the document and stave off embarrassment by canceling the wedding so close to the date. He tells her to think of it as a “signing bonus.” She counters that he needs to pay her $100,000.
Jeremy Strong
Pief WeymanThe gay orgy
Trump is shown as woefully out of place with the movers and shakers he so desperately wants to impress, almost endearingly so. When Cohn forces him to drink the night they meet, despite Trump’s protest that he doesn’t partake, he runs from the table to vomit in a sink after a few glasses. Later, he’s an awkward wallflower at one of Cohn’s parties, where everyone around him is wasted and doing lines of cocaine.
He wanders through the house to find Cohn, and is startled to open a door and discover Cohn in the midst of an orgy: getting railed by one man from behind on a bed while three other men are having sex with each other a few feet away. This is when Trump realizes that Cohn is gay (what was the clue?), which complicates their relationship going forward when Trump feigns ignorance after hearing rumors that Cohn has AIDS and see-saws between being supportive and callous to his old friend. He allows one of Cohn’s friends to stay at one of his hotels, but later sticks Cohn with a bill when he suspects the friend has AIDS.
The cosmetic surgery
Trump’s weight and body is a preoccupation of The Apprentice. Early in the film, he’s told, “You got a big a--. You gotta work on that.” Later, he starts taking diet pills—basically speed—and brags about how he doesn’t sleep anymore because of them.
During a surgical consultation, where he seems proud of gaining weight, the doctor advises him to get liposuction to get rid of his ab fat and love handles. He also has a bald spot surgically removed. “My Country Tis of Thee” is being sung in the background while the film shows the procedures.
Sebastian Stan
Pief WeymanThe mission statement
Trump’s professional relationship with Cohn begins when he goes behind his father’s back to hire the lawyer to represent the family company in a housing discrimination lawsuit. One of Cohn’s first pieces of advice is to counter sue: “File a lawsuit. Always file a lawsuit.” Sounds familiar.
The most pivotal scene at the start of the film is Cohn explaining to Trump his three rules to winning: First, attack, attack, attack. Second is to “admit nothing, deny everything.” Finally, the most important one: “No matter what happens, no matter what they say about you, no matter how beaten you are, claim victory. Never admit defeat.”
Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan
Pief WymanThe corrupt origins
Trump is likely to lose the housing discrimination case, which alleges Black potential tenants are being intentionally denied leases; Cohn tells him as much.
They visit a Justice Department official named Walter to complain that the prosecutor is being too tough. He then shows Walter a series of photos. “You know what could get complicated, Walter?” Cohn says. “A married man committing certain indiscretions with the cabana boys in Cancun. The last I checked, homosexuals were barred from federal civil service.” The lawsuit goes away.
Trump is cheap
Before Cohn’s death from AIDS complications, Trump throws him a birthday party in Florida and gifts his friend diamond cufflinks. Cohn proudly shows them to Ivana. “This is cheap pewter. The stone is zirconia,” Ivana tells him. “Donald has no shame.”
