The Apprentice may have received an 8-minute standing ovation at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival , but the biopic didn’t receive an award. The movie debuted on the international platform from May 14 to 25, 2024, and was directed by Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi. The film narrates the life of Donald Trump as a real-estate mogul in New York before he turned politician.
The film starred actor Sebastian Stan who transformed into Trump and portrayed the role to perfection. The Republican front-runner was a renowned and wealthy real-estate developer under the mentorship of former attorney Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong . The film premiered for the first time at Festival de Cannes, receiving multiple standing ovations.
However, despite receiving accolades, the film failed to take home any awards. Instead, a romantic drama set in New York, Anora , received the top prize, and filmmaker Sean Baker became the first American to win the top award, the Palme d’Or, since 2011,” as per The Hill.
The director’s narrative of Trump’s life from back then created a buzz in the film festival, featuring sensitive moments from the former president’s life, including the alleged rape of his ex-wife Ivana Trump and a scene from the clinic getting liposuction. Meanwhile, to release a film like this at a time when the political climate in the United States is more volatile than ever before is a risk Abbasi calculated beforehand.
Director Ali Abbasi makes the biggest political statement of #Cannes2024 so far during the 8-minute standing ovation for ‘The Apprentice’: ‘There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.’ pic.twitter.com/BGny0agRUW
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) May 20, 2024
He said, “There is no nice symbolic way to deal with fascism; There’s only the messy way. There’s only the banal way. There’s only one way of dealing with this wave on its own terms, at its own level and it’s not going to be pretty, but I think the problem with the world is that the good people have been quiet for too long. So, I think, It’s time to make movies relevant. It’s time to make movies political again,” per Variety .
However, critics called out the film for painting the ex-commander-in-chief in a bad light. Soon after the film premiered at Cannes, Trump’s chief spokesman, Steven Cheung, issued a statement, “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers. This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked,” as per Vanity Fair.
NEW: Donald Trump has reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators of “The Apprentice” movie after they depicted him violently r*ping Ivana Trump. Trump’s attorneys are demanding that the filmmakers not seek a distribution deal in the U.S. “It is a concoction of… pic.twitter.com/RmntIe29Lx
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 27, 2024
Furthermore, Trump’s team slapped The Apprentice filmmakers with a cease-and-desist letter. However, the film’s producers denied that the film intended to malign Trump’s image and argued, “The film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president. We want everyone to see it and then decide.”
The letter further demands Abbasi not pursue a distribution deal in the United States. Cheung added in the statement, “This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.”