“The Apprentice” hits theaters amid anger over Trump’s campaign ahead of the 2024 election

“The Apprentice” chronicles a young Trump's rise to the top of New York's real estate industry under the tutelage of unscrupulous McCarthy-era lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn, who trains his student in the Machiavellian dark arts of power politics. By the finale, Trump had become the self-proclaimed master of Manhattan.

Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman, who wrote the script, draws a direct line between Cohn's naked tactics and Trump's modern political persona. Cohn (Jeremy Strong) tells Trump (Sebastian Stan) to attack relentlessly, “deny everything” and “never admit defeat.”

Abbasi and Sherman also try to pull back the curtain on their characters' private lives. They depict Trump's strained relationship with his demanding father and his grief after the death of his alcoholic older brother Fred, as well as Cohn's personal turmoil when he died of AIDS-related complications in 1986. (Cohn denied being HIV positive.)

Still, the film, which NBC News saw before its theatrical release, paints an often damning picture. In one graphic scene, the dramatized Trump character sexually assaults his first wife, Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova), after a bitter argument.

Ivana Trump claimed in her 1990 divorce declaration that her husband raped her. He denied the accusation. She later said she didn't speak literally but felt she had been hurt by her ex-husband. She died in 2022.

In another notable sequence, Trump's character goes under the knife for scalp reduction surgery and liposuction. Ivana Trump said under oath that Trump had a scalp reduction surgery in 1989. Trump denied plastic surgery in the 1993 biopic “Lost Tycoon.”

The film also details Cohn's efforts to defend the Trump family real estate business against a federal housing discrimination lawsuit in the early 1970s and the Trump figure's marital infidelities.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called “The Apprentice” “pure fiction” and “election interference by Hollywood elites just before November.”

“This 'movie' is pure malicious slander, should never see light, and doesn't even deserve a spot in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closing discount movie store. “It belongs in a dumpster fire,” Cheung said.

Tom Ortenberg, the veteran film executive whose company Briarcliff Entertainment acquired “The Apprentice” for theatrical release after most Hollywood distributors balked at it, has a decidedly different opinion about the film's market value.

“The fact that no one else was willing to distribute 'The Apprentice' gave me a moral imperative to step in and do it,” Ortenberg said in an interview. “If not me, then who? “Unfortunately, the major studios, fearing reprisals, collectively ran away from The Apprentice like their hair was on fire.”

Ortenberg has carved out a niche for himself as a distributor of inflammatory projects, including Kevin Smith's “Dogma,” an irreverent satire that was denounced by the Catholic League; Bill Maher's “Religulous,” an examination of organized religion; and Oliver Stone's “W.”, a darkly comedic biopic about former President George W. Bush.

Briarcliff, who picked up “The Apprentice” in August, previously came to the rescue of “The Dissident,” a documentary about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 2018. “The Dissident” struggled to secure sales for eight months before Ortenberg stepped in.

“I would say, unlike some who like to portray themselves as free speech absolutists, I actually try to be one,” Ortenberg said. “All films deserve a chance to be seen. It’s not my job to tell people what they can and can’t see, but it is my job to make films accessible.”

Briarcliff has a relatively small marketing presence compared to other independent labels such as A24 and Neon. In early September, the team behind “The Apprentice” launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a longer theatrical release.

The film is a huge success, but it is not expected to be a huge commercial success. It will be released in limited release and faces box office competition including “Joker: Folie à Deux,” “Terrifier 3” and “The Wild Robot.” According to Variety, box office analysts estimate that “The Apprentice” will open with $1 million to $3 million in its opening weekend from 1,740 theaters.

Abbasi said he doubts his film will be a big “October surprise” in the final stretch to Election Day.

“I wish I was that person because that would give me a lot of power,” Abbasi joked.

But he said he hopes voters considering the “character” of the two main candidates will engage with his film's themes.

“You may find answers to some of your character questions about Trump,” Abbasi said. “The bigger point we want to make with the film is that political theater has existed in this country for a long time.”

He believes “The Apprentice” has “the ability to really surprise people” — including Trump, who he hopes will buy a ticket.