Still, there is much to enjoy in the film, including a Maria Bakalova that eats up the screen like the glamorous and determined Ivana Zelníčková, a model who enters Trump’s orbit and quickly becomes his wife and partner, much to Cohn’s chagrin. Soon after, the balance of power between Cohn and Trump begins to shake. Encouraged by the lawyer, the tycoon presses ahead with the construction of Trump Tower, and will soon become the talk of New York as Cohn, now pale and emaciated from his battle with AIDS, walks in his wake from party to party. , eager for the public.
It is in this part of the story, the former apprentice now turned master, when Stan lets go completely. The actor is gradually acquiring the Trump tics that are already so familiar to us: as Cohn encourages him to embellish his achievements, the way he talks about him becomes more grandiose; The more notoriety, the more boasting. Soon the exaggerated hand gestures, the tension in the upper lip and the emphasis on certain words when he utters threats begin to appear.
As for whether there are moments that reveal another Trump beyond the one we see on television, there are several. Especially fascinating a sequence in which he cries after his brother’s funeral: that impenetrable, invincible wall of bravado collapses in a way we could never imagine in real life. There is also another scene, immediately after Cohn’s death, in which he undergoes liposuction and scalp reduction to hide his hair loss, which highlights his vanity and solipsism.
But, understandably, it’s another scene that has dominated the conversations of festival-goers: the one showing a brutal marital rapel. By this point in the film, Trump has tired of Ivana, and when she gives him a gift to rekindle the spark in her, he tells her that he’s no longer attracted to her. Then she reproaches him for his appearance, he grabs her, they struggle, and he throws her to the ground and forces her to have sex (the sequence fictionalizes an incident recorded in Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, which she later retracted. “As a woman I felt violated,” she later stated. “I referred to it as rape, but I don’t want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
