Some promising or well-received topical films remain difficult to find, even in an age of streaming. Three examples are “The Apprentice,” “Green Border” and “The Smell of Money.”
“The Apprentice” (2024) is a gripping, disturbing glimpse at the relationship between a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan, MCU) and the red-baiting Mob lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong, “Succession”). It’s planned to show in Canada, Europe and Japan, but not in the United States.
So Emanuel Nuñez, president of the company Kinematics, one of the film’s investors, told Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times, “Trump attacked the film and, unfortunately, it appears that Hollywood right now doesn’t have the stomach to release this film and take him on.”
Searching streaming services, the message is “currently unavailable.”
Goldberg commented, “Should ‘The Apprentice’ end up widely available globally but not, for political reasons, in the United States, it will be a sign of democratic decay.”
Similarly, “Green Border” (2023) takes on the crisis of immigrating refugees in a drama directed by Oscar-nominated Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, who follows people heading to Europe via Belarus and finding themselves being exploited by politicians in an “Us vs. the Other” issue. But Holland shows that when the powerful ignore the human element, all is lost. A streamer search finds a trailer only.
Finally, “The Smell of Money” (2022) is a 83-minute documentary about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in North Carolina where the Murphy Brown company, its owner Smithfield, itself a subsidiary of a Chinese conglomerate, pollutes the air, water and soil, with few consequences. Initially scheduled for a screening for BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, its showing was cancelled, possibly due to pressure from the state’s Farm Bureau, which supports such hog farming and has influence with the insurer.
It’s not completely suppressed (available for $3.99 on Amazon Prime and $14.99 on Apple TV+) but it’s so affecting and difficult to find that actor Joaquin Phoenix, an environmental and animal-rights activist, in December reimbursed the first 500 people who pre-ordered the film from Google Play or iTunes.