The Apprentice Political Drama or A True Depiction

The Apprentice, the controversial new Donald Trump movie that opened Friday, portrays the future 45th president as a rapist, a liar and a sketchy businessman who stiffs just about everyone.

The onscreen Trump lies and cheats. He watches Cohn manipulate public officials, reaping millions from the crookedness. He tries to hijack his siblings’ inheritance and turns his own troubled brother away at the door. Inspired by his mentor, he develops the blustery, belligerent style that is now his political trademark.

The film’s most controversial scene is a wrenching depiction of a marital rape of Trump’s first wife, Ivana, something the first Mrs. Trump testified about during a divorce proceeding but later downplayed. Abbasi told me he included the graphic interaction in order to bring to life something that a lot of people back then didn’t think was a crime if it happened within a marriage. Tellingly, in a subsequent scene, Ivana is depicted gathering her thoughts before walking into the limelight alongside her husband, maintaining the charade of a happy couple.

But, even after all of the betrayals, the movie doesn’t feel quite like a #resistance call to arms. Where standard anti-Trump fare casts the 45th president as a singularly wicked force, The Apprentice depicts him as a product of a specific place (bad-old-days Manhattan) and some specific people (his loveless family, his amoral mentor, a greasy New York power elite that includes glimpses of Rupert Murdoch, Roger Stone and George Steinbrenner). He’s tragic, not evil.