For months, it looked like the Donald Trump origin story, The Apprentice, was never going to find a distributor after the Cannes Film Festival, as the Trump team threatened legal action to shut it down before it saw the light of day in the US.

It now has a national release date of October 10, and whether you dislike the former US president, or want to see him re-elected on November 5 for a second term in the White House, the two-hour feature film delivers some insights into a young Trump and his rise to power.

Described as a dive into the underbelly of the American empire, the film follows Trump, played by Sebastian Stan, and his deals with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer, Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).

Martin Donovan plays his father, real estate developer Fred Trump, and Maria Bakalova plays his then wife, Ivana.

Positive reviews

“Stan eases into the role, suggesting the young Trump without venturing into an SNL-like impersonation,” writes Deadline‘s Pete Hammond in an early review after film festival screenings at Cannes and Telluride.

“He captures him precisely and believably throughout.”

However, the film may not tell you much about Trump that we don’t already know having been exposed to a decade of his domination of US politics.

“By this point, Trump and every political pundit with air time has made it abundantly clear who he is and how he got that way,” writes Entertainment Weekly’s reviewer Maureen Lee Lenker.

She says the film “chronicles the rise of Donald Trump as a real estate mogul and his descent into greed, egomania, and moral bankruptcy throughout the 1970s and ’80s”.

“As a young man desperate to impress his father, Fred, … Trump finds an unexpected ally in notorious lawyer … Cohn, infamous for sending the Rosenbergs to the electric chair at the height of the Red Scare.

“The most disturbing aspect of The Apprentice is how familiar this all is by now and how numb we are to its depravity.”

Other releases

Joker: Folie à Deux: October 3

Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix returns as the titular Joker, alongside Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga.

At 138 minutes long, the musical sequel is once again helmed by Todd Phillips (Joker, 2019), and co-stars Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Zazie Beetz.

Coldplay: October 2

Presented with the best cinematic technology around Australia, Coldplay fans will hear their new album, Moon Music, in Dolby Atmos where available before its global release.

The Critic: October 3

Fresh from a stage fall a few months ago, Sir Ian McKellen, 85, stars as theatre critic Jimmy Erskine in an adaptation of Anthony Quinn’s novel, Curtain Call, in his next feature film.

He plays the Daily Chronicle‘s most famous and featured critic who has a few run-ins with David Brooke (Mark Strong) who recently inherited the paper.

A young actor Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), is devastated by his recent negative review of her.

As the three become “entangled in a whodunnit wrapped in a Faustian pact”, their strange triangle winds tighter and tighter to devastating effect for all those caught in the deadly web of blackmail and betrayal.

Ghostlight: October 10

When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.

An audience reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes wrote: “Don’t easily pass this movie by simply because there are no stars in it or because there are no huge explosions of Hollywood productions in its pictures.

“Watch this movie if you are looking for simple but deep emotions in human relationships.”

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story: October 10

From unknown actor to iconic movie star and his definitive portrayal of Clark Kent – aka Superman – Reeve set the benchmark for the superhero cinematic universes that dominate cinema today.

He played the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor, before being injured in a near-fatal horse riding accident in 1995 that left him paralysed from the neck down.

After becoming a quadriplegic, he became a leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries.

The film includes never-before-seen home movies and personal archive material, as well as the first extended interviews ever filmed with Reeve’s three children.

Assassin’s Plan: October 17

No rest for Michael Keaton as the “Ghost with the Most” having wrapped Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, he’s back to play a contract killer who has a fast-moving form of dementia with just weeks to live.

He redeems himself by saving the life of his estranged adult son as police close in on him for previous crimes.

Lee: October 24

Oscar winner Kate Winslet stars in a portrait of US war correspondent, former Vogue model Lee Miller, whose talent and tenacity produced many of the 20th century’s most indelible images.

“She saw the micro-details of combat in a way that her male counterparts frequently overlooked,” writes The Guardian in a review.

” … not just the role played by the unheralded everywoman on the street, but also the shame and humiliation felt by those whom the war had chewed up and spat out along the way.”