When screening at the legendary Cannes Film Festival, a feature’s success at the event is not always measured by the awards it wins, but rather the length of its respective standing ovation. For context, the longest ever ovation at the festival was an astonishing 22 minutes for Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006, which is hardly surprising when you consider that it’s one of the greatest movies of the 21st century. Last year, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon earned the most applause with a 9-minute ovation, but Laz Luhrmann’s Elvis outdid it in 2022 with 12 minutes, though arguably the 6-minute round of applause for Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale drew the most attention, as much of it was focused on an emotional Brendan Fraser, whose striking lead performance in the film would eventually earn him an Oscar.
This year’s Cannes Film Festival has proved no different, as there are already some notable features that have earned the hands and legs of attendees, with Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited, self-funded Megalopolis earning a 10-minute standing ovation despite being immensely divisive among critics. However, another of the most eye-catching honourees is the Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice, which is a Canadian co-production directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, who has already earned much acclaim for his work, including two episodes of The Last of Us, a show shot in Alberta.
The Apprentice, whose title is a clear reference to the famous reality show of the same name once hosted by Trump, centres on the former president’s pre-MAGA days when he was a young property developer being mentored by the notorious Roy Cohn. For those who don’t know, Cohn was a ruthless New York prosecutor who had worked closely with disgraced senator Joseph R. McCarthy during his efforts to out post-war communists in 1940s and 1950s, which included a number of Hollywood celebrities such as Elia Kazan (who controversially testified against his peers), Samuel Ornitz, and Dalton Trumbo, the latter of whom won two Oscars for his uncredited screenwriting of Roman Holiday and The Brave One after being blacklisted.
Cohn was certainly on the wrong side of history with McCarthyism, and it eventually led to the downfall of the very senator after which the cynical movement was named. Cohn’s unscrupulous nature even led to his own disbarment after forcing a dying client to sign over his entire fortune to Cohn in his will. A staunch conservative, Cohn was an interestingly contradictory figure, as it was also well-known that he was a gay man, and actually died from AIDs-related complications mere weeks after his disbarment.
This is the man that a young Donald Trump looked up to, and from whom he learned many of is unsavoury tactics. Trump even famously lamented, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” when his then-Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Mueller Investigation. Trump’s quote would eventually become the title of a fascinating Netflix documentary that I recommend checking out.
The Apprentice ultimately earned a notable 8 to 11-minute standing ovation (reports currently vary), with much of the praise aimed at its cast, which features Marvel actor Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump, Succession’s Jeremy Strong as Cohn, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’s breakout star Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, and Canadian actors Mark Rendall and Joe Pingue, the latter of whom portrays the infamous mobster Anthony Salerno, who Cohn legally represented. The Apprentice has certainly not shied away from some of the more salacious aspects of Trump’s life during this time, reportedly even depicting Ivana’s alleged rape by Trump, garnering shock and praise in equal measure. There is also said to be a scene where Stan’s Trump receives liposuction, something the former U.S. president has seemingly not done in some time.
The Apprentice was always going to draw eyes as well as controversy, and its first screening has certainly proven as much, particularly given how relevant the subject matter is, even despite the fact that it depicts events which took place in Trump’s younger days. The earliest reviews are decidedly mixed, though there is yet to be an overall consensus on the film’s merits beyond the acting and the shock-value of some moments, but whatever the case, The Apprentice, which has yet to land a U.S. distributor, will certainly garner further attention and examination as its release will likely coincide with the presidential election later this year. Don’t take it from me, but rather Abbasi himself, who said at the screening, “The storm is not going to get away. The storm is coming. Actually, the worst times are to come.”