Controversy has swept into Cannes, riding on the back of a new Donald Trump biopic (but is the movie any good?). Plus: David Cronenberg returns and there are acquisitions aplenty.
“The Apprentice” courts controversy
Any movie about the life of Donald Trump was going to stir up controversy. But “The Apprentice,” from Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi (whose last film, the brutal “Holy Spider,” competed for the Palme d’Or in 2022) and starring Sebastian Stan as the former (and possible future) president, is enraging pretty much everybody.
Before the film even screened, one of the film’s backers, billionaire Dan Snyder, issued cease-and-desist letters against the film, which he had partially funded believing that it would be a warm portrait of the former commander-in-chief.