Silent No More

The thing on the forefront of my mind while watching this movie was how good it would be as a piece of fiction. Let me set the scene: A young man raised in a tension filled, rich, family begins his decent into corruption as he is mentored by New Yorks most infamous attorney. The man’s father was always hard on him and never respected him, making him easily malleable in the hands of the attorney he’s hired to help his family get out of the public hotseat. As he and the attorney continue working together, the attorney’s influence on the man is undeniable and he soon follows the classic archetype of the student soon overtaking the master. By the end of the film the man has been reckless with all those around him, yet has learned nothing but three rules from the attorney who he has since tossed to the side and watched die:

1. Attack, attack, attack
2. Deny EVERYTHING, admit NOTHING
3. No matter what, always claim victory and NEVER admit defeat

The last scene is him reciting these three rules to a journalist interviewing him, and as the scene comes to a close, the camera zooms in on those once naive eyes and shows the reflection of the American Flag blowing in the wind.

In order to first appreciate the artistry of this film we have to look at it as if it were a piece of fiction. If it were such, this film would be a testimony to the corrupt nature of the classic ‘Businessman’. It shows how easy it is to get roped into the theatrics of the rich and powerful, but most importantly, how those who live off of admiration for those groups, if given the opportunity, will do whatever it takes to outdo them.

Narratively, Trump is a fascinating character. He shows sympathetic qualities and as his character arc is fulfilled you have no choice but sit and watch the corruption of someone who had so much potential to become something better. His arc is represented not just by storytelling but also by costuming. This is where my love for the more technical side of this art comes out. Trump adorns the classic business wear that your average New Yorker wears in the beginning of the movie. As he gains power and notoriety his wardrobe clearly reflects that. In a very uncomfortable and clear depiction of sexual assault that he perpetrates, he is seen wearing a silk, golden, robe. In that scene he is the most powerful he will ever be, exercising that power brutally and without remorse, and this is very clearly reflected through the costuming as gold is one the most clear-cut symbols of wealth and power.

Another aspect of the editing and structure of the film that I found complimented the theme was how Ali Abbasi spliced clips of his rise to power to with more explicit scenes. It almost created an understanding of how power felt to Trump. There was a comment he made in the film about not doing drugs or drinking alcohol because he needed to feel in power of himself, and I think this is also reflected through how he acts when he is at his most powerful. His addiction is power, he wants and wants, and it is never enough. After he got a sliver of it, he needed all of it.

This is one of the main differences between Roy Cohn and Trump. Both have different ways of indulging in self-destructive behavior, and their uncaring nature comes back to bite them both over and over again. As Cohn was a real person it’s hard to call him a representation of a specific group, however in the narrative sense of the movie he feels very representative of trump supporters today. He builds Trump up, gives him everything, and supports him throughout their entire relationship. He does this because he thinks it benefits himself. “If you succeed, I succeed” a paraphrased version of what Roy Cohn says to Trump after decided to no longer charge him for being his lawyer. Cohn assumes the relationship will amount to being mutually beneficial, but as Trump gains more power and uses Cohn’s skills and services, he begins to discard him. At the end of Cohn’s life Trump ‘compensates’ him by giving him the self-absorbed gift of cufflinks that say ‘Trump’ and a cake of the American Flag. The scene of Cohn standing over the cake during what seems to be one of the last nights of his life, on his birthday, is chilling. He seems to realize that all the time he poured into helping Trump, into teaching him and molding him and lifting him up, as ultimately amounted to nothing for him. His last gift from Trump proves to him that he means nothing to him, that no matter how much Cohn had grown to care for him, Trump did not care. He got what he wanted out of Cohn, and now he was happy to see him die. I think, like Cohn, trump supporters will only start to realize that now that it is too late.

On to the performances themselves, Jeremy Strong gave an incredible performance, being nominated for the Oscars this year as Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film. I personally want his Succession Co-star Kieran Culkin to win for A Real Pain (my personal favorite movie of the last year), however that does not negate the value of Strong’s performance in my eyes. I don’t know much about Roy Cohn outside of this movie’s portrayal of him, but from what I could tell I think Strong did a fantastic job capturing that corrupt core to him while still feeling like he had a shrivel of humanity left to him. The last act of the movie really highlighted how amazing Jeremy Strong is, transitioning Cohn from the powerful, no-remorse businessman to a fragile and vulnerable person. In the end, I did feel bad for him. Not because what happened to him got rid of all the bad things he had done, but because he went down Trumps path first, and yet didn’t realize it was the wrong one until deaths hand was on his shoulder.

Additionally, Sebastian Stan was phenomenal. The way he developed Trump throughout the movie, from a naive, power desperate young man, to a maniacal and ruthless businessman was perfectly executed. Stan managed to capture the intricacies of Trumps mannerisms and speech patterns without over exaggerating it (as if Trump himself exaggerates his own mannerisms). And as the movie goes on, as Trump rises to power, those mannerisms get much more apparent. This also goes hand in hand with the costume and makeup departments as they show his transition from your classic corrupt businessman to Donald Trump. The final scene shows him with a more orange face, wearing his classic suit and red tie with his more bleached-looking blond hair. This transition in looks and in behavior is done so gradually it’s almost unnoticeable until that final scene. Sebastain Stan manages to make you feel some essence of sympathy for Trump during some of the more understandable struggles he goes through. But through that humanization of Trump, it almost makes you hate him more. You see how he had that potential to be a normal human, to use that power for good, but at every fork in the road he chooses the wrong direction. And that perfectly makes him seem human in all the worst ways, showing how he willingly pushed away that humanity for his own personal gain, transforming him into something completely devoid of normal human qualities. Sebastain Stan was nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Feature Film, and I believe he fully deserves that award for his work in this role.

Now, what does this mean for us? It’s hard to say. The movie doesn’t really try to tell us what to do about Trump. It doesn’t give us solutions or even a sliver of hope that Trump might not be all bad. It simply shows us who he is, why is that way, and how he got there. There’s nothing much more to it. And unfortunately, that may be the best takeaway from this movie. Trump is in power, and as long as he is he will keep vying for more, even if that means the destruction of the democracy he claims he cares so much about; even if it means trying to claim more territories out of other countries; even if that means crushing the American people under his feet to get what he wants. But one other thing I did get from this is that he was human. And so are we. We have the power to choose the right paths to go down, even if someone else didn’t. Even though it may seem like there is nothing to be done about him you can’t let yourself think there is nothing to be done about yourself.