It’s early in the day for a movie visit and it’s freezing 15 degrees outside. The fourteen moviegoers who braved the cold of New York for the opening screening of Melaniaall appear to be journalists – for publications ranging from The Free Press to the magazine Curbedwhich the journalist admits is mainly there for a glimpse into the interior of Trump’s Mar-A-Lago country retreat and “Melania’s outfits, bags and shoes.”
Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to make the film, an unprecedented amount for a documentary. Melania Trump agreed that she could produce the film herself, while Amazon also released an additional $35 million for marketing the film. According to critics, it was an unsubtle way for Amazon boss Jeff Bezos to ingratiate himself with Melania’s husband. According to Deadline Hollywood, the first sales figures indicate a turnover of 5 million dollars in the opening weekend, disappointing given the budget – “a flop”, according to the news site.
In the film, Melania Trump takes the viewer to the twenty days until the inauguration of her husband Donald for his second term as president. She persistently tries to paint a picture of a woman who is obsessed with style, both in the field of fashion and interior design, but who is also a loving mother, wife and world citizen, guided by empathy for her fellow man. The latter appears to be a bridge too far.
The director of the vehicle is Brett Ratner, known for films such as Rush Hour and X-Men: The Last Stand, who was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017 and did not make a film afterwards. Ratner uses all kinds of cinematic tricks to strengthen the image that the first lady wants to project of herself: varied music choices, frequent zooming in on her face, Polygon-like images at historical moments such as the inauguration, accelerations in tempo and surprising camera work.
But he does not achieve emotional depth with it. That is due to Trump, who simply often does not seem sincere. When she receives the wife of a man held hostage by Hamas at home and she becomes emotional, she embraces the woman. But she knows too well where the camera is. It’s too staged.
She uses big words like hope, compassion, love, humility, dignity and freedom so often that they become meaningless – whether it concerns her family or victims of natural disasters. When the First Lady, herself an immigrant from Slovenia, advocates the rights of migrants in her new country, she says: “Because ultimately, regardless of our origins, we are connected by the same humanity.”
It is not clear how she reconciles that with her husband’s anti-immigration policy.
Yet the film is regularly entertaining, for example when the viewer imagines a… fly on the wall with the Trump family. When Donald calls his wife as happy as a child after his election victory, she appears to have barely followed it all – “I’ll see it on the news later.” When the two get a briefing about the inauguration, and Donald can’t stop talking about the fact that a big football game is being broadcast on the same day, Melania’s scorn is palate. The scenes in which she tries on her many outfits in Trump Tower in New York, surrounded by stylists, tailors and other staff, seem so out of place Emily in Paris to come.
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That long white dress with some long black strips that she wore to the inauguration ball also looked great on her. And style, that’s what she’s all about – those sunglasses and high heels keep coming into view. In one of her many voice-overs, she says as she gets into a limousine: “I want to be remembered as a First Lady with style.”
What lasts is the feeling that you have watched an almost two-hour informative commercial for the fashion and lifestyle brand Melania. Detail: The film’s title is presented in the same minimalist typography as the title of her 2024 memoir: Melania.
The film ends with a photoshoot of the first lady in the White House, where the image suddenly freezes and the colors fade to black and white. The colors of which she said to her entourage while trying on her ball gown: ‘Black and white, that is so me‘.
The viewer does not find out who this ‘me’ is. But that wasn’t the point.
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