Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice – 2024 Cannes Critics’ Panel: Day 7
Making it three features in a row that’ll have premiered on the Croisette, Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi saw his sophomore feature Border play like gangbusters in the Un Certain Regard section (winning the top prize via the Benicio Del Toro-led jury). Four years later in 2022, he presented Holy Spider (read review) and that won Zar Amir Ebrahimi the Best Actress Palme. The film scored an average of 3.0 with our jury. Jumping into production in late 2023 in Toronto, The Apprentice features Silver Bear Winner Sebastian Stan plays a younger Donald Trump in this piece of satire.
Gist: Written by Gabe Sherman, taking place in 70s and 80s NYC, this charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn. Jeremy Strong takes on Roy Cohn, and Maria Bakalova will play Trump’s first wife, Ivana.
Current temperature: A Canadian, Danish and Irish film production, we’re curious to see if Sebastian Stan can make it back to back fests winning Best Actor top honors Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man. The second twisted New York-set tale for the actor might actually accomplish just that – and worth noting Jeremy Strong will receive awards kudos later this year. With almost all of our critics’ grades accounted for, we got a 3.0 average – no election fraud here.
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