To clear any confusion up front, The Apprentice has nothing to do with the NBC reality competition of that name, in which Donald Trump sifted through a field of aspiring businesspeople to identify the most promising of them, sending an eliminated contestant home each week with the brutal dismissal, “You’re fired!” On the other hand, you could say that Ali Abbasi’s biographical drama has everything to do with the television series.
It’s a reverse reflection of the mentorship process, in which the host becomes the hungry young upstart, laying the foundations for a business empire built in part out of smoke and mirrors, and operating under the guidance of a master manipulator.
