The Apprentice premiered this week at the Cannes International Film Festival, and the biopic, which reportedly portrays former President Donald Trump in an unflattering light during his early years, has faced criticism for depicting him as a rapist.
Directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival on Monday, receiving mixed reviews. Some critics have praised it as a chilling cautionary tale, while others have dismissed it as a shallow caricature that fails to move beyond being a cheap polemic. A particularly divisive scene later in the film shows Trump assaulting and raping his ex-wife, Ivana Trump.
From The Guardian:
The scene, which occurs near the end of The Apprentice, depicts Trump reacting with anger after Ivana criticizes his appearance. “You have a face like a fucking orange,” she says to him. “You’re getting fat, you’re getting ugly, and you’re getting bald.” The future president is then shown forcing his wife to the floor and raping her. “Did I find your G-spot?” he asks in the film. … In her 1990 divorce deposition, Ivana Trump described a similar assault she said occurred shortly after her husband’s scalp-reduction surgery. She claimed Trump pushed her to the floor and pulled out handfuls of her hair. Initially, Ivana described the incident as a rape but later retracted the claim. In a 1993 statement, she said, “On one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently towards me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated … I referred to this as rape, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
The former president stated during the divorce proceedings that Ivana’s allegations were “obviously false.” Ivana Trump passed away in July 2022, and her body is buried at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Despite its premiere at Cannes and its strong anti-Trump stance, The Apprentice has yet to secure a U.S. distributor, and some critics have been harsh in their reviews.
“The monstrosity here is almost sentimental, a cartoon Xeroxed from many other satirical Trump takes and knowing prophetic echoes of his political future,” wrote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.
“Clipped from the start and increasingly uncertain of its purpose as it fumbles toward the Trump we know, this origin story certainly isn’t as painful to watch as the future that it portends has been to endure, but it’s every bit as banal and unnecessary,” wrote David Ehrlich for IndieWire.
