At the London Film Festival: The Apprentice is Hollywood's October Surprise

The Apprentice is obviously Hollywood's October Surprise on the Donald Trump campaign. Coming just a few weeks before the Nov. 5 critical presidential vote it's designed to level a torpedo blow to Trump, someone whom liberal (Democrat) Hollywood loves to hate. An October Surprise, by definition, is an attempt to lob a major bomb (i.e., revelation of a scandal) against a US presidential candidate to cripple their ability to win an election. Though indeed a powerful film The Apprentice doesn't seem to succeed. For one thing, it has done pittance at the box office, garnering only $1.6 million from 1700 theatres in its first week. For a second, the people most likely to see it are those who already despise Trump and lap up more of its alleged revelations. It may convince a few independent voters (neither Trump or Harris) but how many of those will see it? However, as far as cinema goes, The Apprentice is a riveting film, a combination of fast-paced images, bombastic score, superb recasting of the 1980's and 90's, and amazingly true-to-life characters in personas of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). This is a filmmaker's tale of a young Donald Trump, starting out in the real estate business from his father Fred. It focuses on the relationship between Trump and the wickedly devious Roy Cohn, an aid to the notorious 1950's anti-Communist McCarthy Un-American Activities Ctte. According to the movie, Cohn took Trump under his wing, as the two fought city hall ordinances using dirty tricks to, among other things, blackmail politicians. The script was written by New York magazine journalist Gabriel Sherman, a well known anti-Trump rabble rouser. It was directed by Ali Abbasi and stars Stan, Strong and Maria Bakalova as Trump's first wife Ivana. None of these people were familiar to me. But Abbasi's direction is amazing and, whether you agree with its political view or not, the film is a tour de force. And Stan does bare an uncanny resemblance to Trump including in some of the facial expressions like Trump's oh-so-identifiable smirk. One comes away from the film thinking Trump will do anything corrupt to succeed including running for president. The Trump campaign has denoucced the movie in no uncertain terms. My question is: why are these movies always directed against Republicans? Where are the movies about the Kennedy brothers' corruptions and affairs, even allegations that John F. cheated in Chicago, courtesy infamous former Democrat iron-fisted Mayor Richard Daley, to initially win in 1960? Why nothing on Bill Clinton's myriad affairs? Why indeed nothing on Joe Biden's alleged profiting from son Hunter's business dealings? Well, as I started out saying, it's Democrat Hollywood.

Other movies I've seen at the London (UK) Film Festival this week:

Joy - a Brit dramatization of the homegrown team which performed the first IVF transplant, directed by Ben Taylor and starring Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton. The movie does well re-creating the period of the late 1960's and 70's and the social and political forces the medical team was up against - including being accused of being Frankensteins - though having a little too much scientific verbiage for the average mind, including alas mine, to always grasp.

When Fall is Coming - French director François Ozon's take on the decline that can come with age, with star Hélène Vincent, makes you at once sympathize with the story's characters while questioning how many tragedies can befall two close knit families within a short period of time.

Twiggy - a superb documentary by Sadie Frost, it depicts a multidimensional star, an icon of London's Swinging Sixties but unbeknownst to me, a star who kept performing as actor (Ken Russell's The Boy Friend, 1971) and singer, now 75 and continuing performing right up to the present day. Down to earth and always ready to take on artistic risks, Twiggy (Lesley Hornby) is hardly the plastic persona one might imagine.