Pumpkin Person rating: 9/10

DirectorAli Abbasi, Writer: Gabriel Sherman Budget: $16 million Box office: $12 million

I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a long time but apparently all the movie theatres feared law suits because the few theaters that would show it would only do so on weekday afternoons when I was working. This is not surprising given that a Trump spokesperson called the film “garbage” and “pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store. It belongs in a dumpster fire.”

According to Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers…This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked. As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”

Finally I saw the film from the comfort of my home which I prefer anyway. The film depicts Trump’s life from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. It starts when the twenty-something Trump is at a private club with a young woman. He notes that across the room from them is one of the only two billionaires in America and explains that becoming a billionaire takes a certain gene.

Notorious closeted gay lawyer lawyer  Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong from HBO’s must-see show Succession) invites the awkward young man (but not his date) to his table to eat with an Italian mobster and other power brokers. Cohn feels sorry for the goofy, oafish yet handsome young Trump, takes him under his wing and teaches him how to be a winner (though the subtext is Cohn has a crush on him) much to the jealousy of Cohn’s other blond young friend who seems to feel the even younger Trump is being groomed as his replacement.

Many of the techniques that caused Scott Adams types to view Trump as a political chess master, were, according to this film, actually taught to him by Roy Cohn who is portrayed as the evil genius mastermind behind Trump’s success. More evidence for Ashkenazi high IQ.

Among the rules Cohn taught his young apprentice:

  • Attack, attack, attack; someone hits you; hit them back ten times harder
  • Deny everything; admit nothing
  • No matter how badly you’re beaten, always declare victory

But in the end there is no victory for Cohn who finds himself brutally discarded once Trump no longer needs him.

I thought the film was clever in not trying to tell Trump’s entire life story, but focusing on a specific period. His initial rise from the outsider from Queens to the King of New York. No one personifies that city during the 1980s quite like Trump, and the film is peppered with nostalgic tunes like The Pet shop Boys’ Always on My Mind and Baccara’s haunting Yes sir I can boogie to depict his ill-fated romance with first wife Ivana who is portrayed as stunningly beautiful in her youth.

But perhaps the true star of the film is the city of New York itself, with its massive skyscrapers, bright lights and all around vibrancy, seen from the panoramic view from high up in Trump tower.