If there’s one thing Succession taught us – nearly ten years removed from The Wolf of Wall Street, and another twenty since American Psycho – it’s that no genre is quite as enticing as rich dudes in New York doing terrible things to people, even better if it’s based on actual events. Sure, Hollywood actors are very rich, but the nameless, unscrupulous phantoms of Manhattan’s pin-striped elite make more money with one phone call than Robert Downey Jr. did for all three Iron Man films.
So why am we bringing this up? Because we may just have another one of those films to look forward to, as Iranian-Dutch filmmaker, Ali Abbasi, is presenting The Apprentice, about Donald Trump’s early days in 1970s-’80s Manhattan, at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).
And for those unfamiliar with Trump’s early financial, Gordon Gekko-esque education, the film focuses on his mentoring from none other than Roy Cohn, who was once described by New York lawyer, Victor Kovner, as “You knew when you were in Cohn’s presence you were in the presence of pure evil.” Playing Donald Trump is Sebastian Stan, and returning to the stage of New York greed is Succession’s Jeremy Strong, who will impersonate the ‘evil’ lawyer, Roy Cohn. To say that we are pumped is an understatement.
Abbasi’s last Cannes festival feature was 2022’s Holy Spider, about a journalist’s descent into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city, Mashhad, investigating a serial killer murdering sex workers due to his own belief that he is cleansing the streets of sinners. In other words, Abbasi is a fan of the dark arts, and so are we.
Unfortunately, aside from the images provided, very little has been released about The Apprentice, so here’s the trailer for Holy Spider to give you a taste of Abbasi’s cinematic prowess.
Last year’s festival gave us Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest (among many other greats), two of the best films in recent memory, so considering how high 2023 set the bar, we can only imagine what 2024 is going to deliver.
See you in France.
