‘The Apprentice,’ about a young Donald Trump, premieres in Cannes

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

CANNES, France (AP) — While Donald Trump’s hush money trial entered its sixth week in New York, an origin story for the Republican presidential candidate premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling a scathing portrait of Trump in the 1980s. “The Apprentice” screened Monday. It’s directed by the Iranian Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi and stars Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. The central relationship of the movie is between Trump and Cohn, the defense attorney who was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s Senate investigations. Cohn is depicted as a longtime mentor to Trump, coaching him in the ruthlessness of New York City politics and business.