Within hours of its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in France of “The Apprentice,” the film is sparking mixed reactions — with the audience giving it an eight-minute standing ovation and the Trump campaign promising a lawsuit over what it is calling a “garbage” biopic. 

Depicting the life of President Trump — portrayed by Sebastian Stan —in his early real estate years, the film includes a scene of Mr. Trump sexually assaulting his first wife, Ivana Trump, played by actress Maria Bakalova. Central to the film is also Mr. Trump’s relationship with a lawyer and mentor-like figure, Roy Cohn, who is played by a Succession star, Jeremy Strong. 

The “explosive” film was dubbed by AFP News Agency as one that “paints an unflinching but nuanced portrait of the former US president as he runs again for the White House” and includes “rape, erectile dysfunction, baldness and betrayal.”

The screenplay was written by New York magazine writer Gabriel Sherman, who authored a highly critical biography of former Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes, a confidant of Mr. Trump for many years. 

“There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with fascism,” the director of the movie, Ali Abbasi, said at the premiere, Variety reports. “It’s time to make movies relevant. It’s time to make movies political again.”

The Trump campaign has characterized the film as defamatory and is promising legal action.

“We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” the Trump campaign’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, told Variety. “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked.”

The film is “election interference by Hollywood elites,” Mr. Cheung added, in what he says was an attempt to take down Mr. Trump since nothing they have done so far “has worked.”

“This ‘film’ is 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,” Mr. Cheung said, adding that “it belongs in a dumpster fire.”

The Trump campaign isn’t alone in its anger — a billionaire and friend of Mr. Trump,  Dan Snyder, who invested in the film, is reportedly “furious” about the less-than-positive portrayal of Mr. Trump in the film.

In response to the legal threats from the Trump campaign, Mr. Abbasi offered to screen the movie for the campaign and have a chat afterward.

“Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people — they don’t talk about his success rate though, you know?” Mr. Abbasi said of Mr. Trump, Variety notes. “I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike.”

It’s not yet clear when the film will be available in America, but the director has suggested that the second presidential debate, September 15, would be a “good release date.”