Donald Trump is just a man.

I'm not going to even try to pretend I'm unbiased. I’m preparing for the holidays in the US with my parents (including my immigrant father) right now, but there’s none of the usual cheer. Election day was spent silently avoiding the news and dodging the topic of the election. Even now we avoid speaking of it unless we’re talking about plans going forward, but no matter what we try to distract ourselves with, the political reality is always lurking in the back of our minds.

I can’t say I’m surprised by the result, unfortunately, only how quickly it was decided. What I still can’t quite figure out, though, is why so many people see Trump as some cross between a folk hero and a “winner” of capitalism when he so clearly isn’t. Then again, I don’t quite agree with the typical liberal view of him as an evil bad monster of a man either. No, to me, Donald Trump is just a man - which is why I loved The Apprentice.

To be clear, I’m talking about the 2024 movie starring Sebastian Stan, not Trump’s old TV show. I know a lot of people criticised the film, calling it wishy-washy. It’s Hollywood, after all, and they’re supposed to despise Trump! But I actually think that director Ali Abbasi made the right choice by portraying Trump as both less awful and less great than many people see him. Instead of showing the myth, Abbasi simply shows the man.

My favourite way that he accomplishes this is in The Apprentice’s camerawork. Even though I’ve never watched a 1970s police procedural, I could immediately tell that was its stylistic inspiration. Not only does that communicate to the audience the era where the story begins, it also tells us who Trump was before he became somebody by layering onto him the decidedly ordinary and un-aspirational identity of “beat cop”. This slightly lame identity is only further emphasised by one of the early scenes which shows Trump as a young man desperate for his father’s approval, especially after his older brother lost it.

That was only the beginning, and I was already hooked by the more honest image of Trump - but the real meat of the story came next, where we learn how we ended up where we are today.

We quickly see that Trump’s quest for his father’s approval boiled down to one thing: power. Whether that be wealth, prestige, or something else, he wants tangible evidence to prove that he is good enough. No, not good - great. The only issue is that he doesn’t quite know how to get that evidence. Stan’s Trump is like a baby, blindly reaching for a toy without knowing why he wants it or even how to get it. Had things stayed like that, we might find ourselves in a very different world today.

Instead, he met Cohn.

Where Trump’s father denied approval, Cohn was more than happy to give it. Jeremy Strong does a spectacular job of portraying a man who is slimy and twitchy, as likely to cosy up to you as he is to stab you in the back. When he first sees Trump, he sees a younger version of himself : a man who will do anything to succeed. And so Trump gets a new father figure, one who will raise him to understand the "arts" of manipulation and violence.

I can’t necessarily commend Abbasi on the story since it’s biographical, but choosing to focus on Trump and Cohn's relationship was the perfect choice. While some people were disappointed that the film didn’t highlight Trump’s “rise”, I don’t think that was necessary. We’re all vaguely familiar with the biggest events in his life - it’s the initial spark that was harder to understand.

Even more importantly though, by focusing on their relationship, we see that Trump's scheming is offputting even to people whose entire livelihoods are scamming and exploiting. We see how Cohn spent his whole life publicly destroying the queer community he belonged to because that helped him get ahead - but behind the scenes, he still had love and empathy for them. It's a low bar, but one Trump still stumbles over. Cohn eventually realises (too late) that Trump didn’t operate with the same mobster-like loyalty as he did. While we might not be able to pinpoint the exact moment Trump lost his last shred of decency, it’s clear that by the end even Cohn was horrified by what Trump had become.

His punishment, of course, is having the man he created miss his funeral to go get plastic surgery - shiny skin stretched over a hollow interior.

Trump is neither monster nor hero - he’s just a person, just like the rest of us. The only difference is that he’s a person whose heart is full of greed and whose loyalty belongs only to himself. The brilliance of The Apprentice is that it reminds us of it - I think the critiques I've seen come more often than not come from people who are too caught up in stories and forgetting about reality. I think it's a must-watch to better understand the man who's going to lead the US, though I understand if it's too soon for some people to watch still.

I don't know why so many Americans admire a man who cares for nobody except himself. Maybe that's who we secretly want to be, depressing as it is to imagine. Regardless, it's important to remember not everyone is heartless, and that there are good people out there. Keep hope, if not for yourself than for the people who need you.