The Apprentice: Is the Trump biopic fake news?

The Apprentice, a film directed by Iranian-Danish Ali Abbasi out last week in the UK, constitutes a brutal character assassination against presidential candidate Donald Trump. Focusing on the years 1973 to the early 1980s, it tracks Trump’s rise from real estate mogul’s awkward son (he’s literally knocking on doors collecting rents) to the man liberals encounter in their nightmares. 

“Everything in the movie that seems the most shocking is actually based on true events,” screenwriter Gabriel Sherman has said. “Very little has been dramatised.” Yet the film’s disclaimer reads: “Fictionalised for dramatic purposes.” Is it a problem for a film released weeks before a presidential election to mix fact and fiction – and then claim to be largely true? Especially when the nature of the attack is a take down on Trump’s aversion to truth? I think it is.

The Apprentice depicts the years Trump spent in the company of Roy Cohn, a shrew like man with an unblinking gaze played by the titan of intensity Jeremy Strong. Cohn takes on Trump as a protege of sorts. He schools him in ‘winning’, which, it turns out, is simply being a c**t 24 hours a day, and on weekends (where you also take drugs till you drop). 

The essence of Cohn’s advice to the young Trump condenses to three rules. One: attack, attack, attack. Two: admit nothing, deny everything. Three, the most insidious (clearly pointing to the events of 6 January 2021): always claim victory, never admit defeat.

Without psychological development or reckoning, it is the fact that Trump takes amphetamines that is important, or his suicide-triggering rejection of his brother that becomes his character. If those things might not actually be true, the film is undoubtedly weaker as a result.

The message is clear: Trump is a dangerous psychopath, part of a “system of power” that rewards those who ditch their consciences and deny the rules of consent. For instance: Cohn’s first coup is to help Trump defend his father’s real estate firm from a Department of Justice lawsuit alleging racism against black tenants. Against all odds, they win after blackmailing the official in charge of the suit with photos of him in a gay orgy. 

But that blackmail probably never happened, at least not in the extreme way depicted here – and nor did quite a few other details on which the film’s case against Trump hinges (for instance there’s no hard evidence that he was addicted to amphetamine-based diet pills, which the film plays on heavily, suggesting the speed drove him crazy. Nor that his behaviour was indirectly responsible for his brother’s suicide). The film goes on to track Trump’s rise and Cohn’s equal and opposite fall into debt and destitution, at which point, literally dying from Aids, he begs for Trump’s help. It’s denied. He has created a monster.

Does any of this matter? Legally, it’s a moot point. The US has an extremely high standard of proof for defamation. As of a 1964 ruling, a public figure can recover in libel only if the speech in question is published with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard of the truth. The Apprentice is essentially fiction, even if it uses people’s real names and a bunch of real facts. 

The former president’s legal team issued an unsuccessful cease and desist notice. They haven’t actually sued and will likely never do so. After all, lawyers agree Trump would have little or no chance of winning a defamation lawsuit. “The First Amendment grants a lot of leeway for people to write about or make movies about public figures like Trump. They are allowed to use artistic licence,” David Ring, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, told Newsweek. “They cannot, however, just make things up… The Apprentice sounds like it is based on more than sufficient facts such that it will be lawsuit-proof.”

Truth and fiction

Any biopic will be subject to critique. Indeed, any “true” story will by its nature break from reality as perspective, memory and interpretation push and pull in certain ways. This one feels different for three reasons. First, the directors have claimed that it is real. Second, it depicts someone running for presidential office. Third, it criticises fake news whilst not striving to be as truthful as it could have been.

None of that means it should have been banned – but it does mean it is unlikely to achieve the director’s objectives of convincing people of the evils of Donald Trump. Intentionally released in the run-up to an extremely consequential election, it seems fair to ask: is this helpful?

The characterisation is pretty two dimensional, something even Abasi admits. “Some people say #TheApprentice is vulgar and simplistic. But this is the world we live in. You can’t invent depth where there is non [sic].” You won’t learn anything new here about Trump’s character, which makes the events of the film even more significant. Without psychological development or reckoning, it is the fact that he takes amphetamines that is important, or his suicide-triggering rejection of his brother that becomes his character. If those things might not be true, the film is weaker as a result.

A gift to Trump supporters

This is especially true given The Apprentice doesn’t cover some of the more revealing aspects of Trump’s life. It doesn’t mention Stormy Daniels, nor the disintegration of his relationship with Cohn.

Strong has said he and Stan were not interested in “vilifying or demonising” the real-life subjects of the film – but they are invariably presented as evil, bar perhaps the smidgen of sympathy afforded to Cohn when he begins to die of Aids (though his strenuous denial of the disease and the supervillainification of Donald Trump are presented as his only real legacy). 

For Trump supporters, it will further convince them that The Elite (a shapeshifting group which covers a vast swathe of society including but not limited to the legal system, world politicians and Most of The Media) are out to get their guy.

Many reviewers don’t seem particularly interested in the fact a lot of the film might not have happened. Perhaps the real world consequences of art don’t matter. But I can’t help but think any Donald Trump supporter inclined to conspiracy-type thinking might regard this as yet another example of the liberal media smearing the 45th president of the United States. And really, who could blame them? The Apprentice is a gift to Trump, who can use it as evidence of a conspiracy against him, and throw charges of ‘fake news’ away from himself right back onto his enemies.