I Watched The Most “Controversial” Movie Of The Year To See How Bad It Is

Warning: Some discussion of rape.

Note: This post is an Op-Ed and shares the author’s personal views.

The Donald Trump biopic starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong has been controversial from the jump, with the Trump campaign threatening to sue and the man himself calling the movie a “cheap, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job.” Plus, it’s not like liberals were exactly clamoring for even more exposure to the orange felon.

The controversy had a real-world impact as the movie struggled to find a distributor, and Stan was excluded from Variety’s Actors on Actors series as (according to the actor) publicists and agents “were too afraid to talk about this movie.” If it’s a sign of where Hollywood is going as we stare down another four years of Trump, I don’t love it.

This is all to say that I wound up paying $5.99 to rent the movie one afternoon. The general summary of the movie is this: A young Trump becomes the protegé of lawyer Roy Cohn who molds him into the man he is today.

There are clearly things in this movie that would upset the MAGA crowd. At its start, Trump is portrayed as a hapless dullard who is obsessed with status. At its end, we see Trump abusing amphetamine diet pills and a graphic depiction of the President-elect undergoing plastic surgery. The depiction runs contrary to the cocksure masculinity he attempts to portray now, though one can only imagine which exact moment led the Trump campaign to call the movie “garbage.”

At the heart of this movie is the origins of Trump as a businessman. It documents the 1973 federal housing suit where Trump was accused of anti-Black discrimination against renter. The real estate project that truly put Trump on the map, the renovation of the Commodore Hotel and its multi-million city property tax abatement, is further broken down (it wound up costing New York $360 million to date).

That Trump’s deals are based on a foundation of lies, shady deals, and rambling bravado that harks back to the ’70s is perhaps unsurprising if you actually look at the man today. He has been convicted on 34 felonies and filed for business bankruptcy four times.

The bigger question to me is this: Why, knowing everything we do about Trump’s true business record, is so much of the American public willing to buy into his very American self-mythologizing as a great businessman? After all, anyone who says that Trump will run the country like a business should be saying it as a pejorative.

The relationship at the core of this movie is between Trump and Cohn. Cohn is Trump’s teacher, mentor, surrogate father, and, ultimately, a Frankenstein figure. Yet on a character level, much of their interactions feel too surface-level to carry weight. This is a far cry from the character study of Cohn we see in Angels In America, or the pathetic yet tragic story of his last weeks of life told by his cousin. As with much of the movie, it quite frankly lacks the bite it could have had.

The other closest relationship we see in Trump’s life is with his first wife, Ivana. Similarly to Cohn, what draws Trump to the former model is what will prompt him to leave her. He praises her desire to want more than a marriage yet ends up lamenting that she has become like a “business partner.” He orchestrates her breast augmentation only to be repulsed by her “plastic” breasts.

The movie also depicts Trump raping Ivana, based on her 1990 divorce court testimony which she later walked back. As director Ali Abbasi has said himself, it’s a less graphic depiction than what was actually alleged. Ignoring the debate surrounding whether its ever appropriate to have a rape scene on screen, I couldn’t help but feel again that the moment was too swiftly glossed over into a scene with casinos and pulsating ’80s music. Any emotional fallout is never explored.

In my eyes, what makes a biopic of a well-known figure great is when it can show a lens on its subject that feels subversive or unexplored. It’s why I believe that Priscilla is a more compelling watch than Elvis. With a man as grotesque and tyrannical as Trump, I wondered if I might leave this movie feeling…well, something. I’m not sure that I did.

Anyway, that’s just my take — have you seen the movie? What did you think?

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 (HOPE), which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.