Euronews Culture’s David Mouriquand went to see the Melania Trump documentary ‘Melania’ so you don’t have to.
At the end of time, when the fabric of space and time has collapsed, there will be a final level boss, the gatekeeper whose vacant stare finally reveals that there is no benevolent deity to explain everything and that behind the grotesque pantomime we call life hides no greater truth. The gatekeeper of this cosmic harlequinade could very well be Melania Trump.
Harsh? Not if you’ve sat through Melania, the new documentary directed by Hollywood outcast Brett Ratner, which Amazon has spent $40m to acquire – with $28m going directly into Mrs. Trump's tailored pockets.
It follows the terrifyingly emotionless US first lady during the three weeks leading up to the second Trump inauguration, aiming to offer rare and unfiltered insider access to an inscrutable figure.
“Everyone wants to know” are Melania’s first words.
Debatable.
While there could have been a flickering ember of hope that we actually might learn something about the former model from Slovenia who ended up marrying the most anti-immigrant president the US has known, to say that Melania is short on substance is a cruel insult to things that are short on substance.
Instead of a sliver of insight on the supposed enigma hiding behind expensive designer hats or information about the true dynamics of her marriage, we only get to see a perpetually scowling figure. She selects gold eggs with caviar for the inauguration dinner. She picks out “really sharp” outfits with fashion designers. She delights us with vapid pull quotes which sound like they’ve been delivered by an AI on a quest to prove its soullessness – monotonously delivered aphorisms like “we are all bound by the same humanity” and “cherish your family and loved ones”.
Oh, we do learn that her favourite recording artist is Michael Jackson.
It was all worth it, then.
The only human moment in this self-congratulatory portrait of privilege, one singularly uninterested in mining anything beyond the surface, is Melania sharing that she is still grieving her “beloved mother” Amalija Knavs, who died in January 2024.
It’s a potentially interesting insight that could have provided some depth, but in lieu of injecting humanity, the personal detail only emphasises a cruel lack of empathy. We witness this when Melania unable to conjure the slightest bit of compassion at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. She’s not thinking about the recently deceased human being or the sorrow felt by his loved ones; she only cares about her narrative.
Somewhat perversely – and this is perhaps the film’s greatest trick – Mrs. Trump’s lack of personality and overall lifelessness makes her husband come off as... whisper it... almost charismatic. Donald Trump occasionally appears in Melania, and while the lack of warmth between the two was already plain to see, he comes off as a breath of fresh air. Quite the feat.
However, even this surprising default side-effect is undercut by Donald reminding audiences that empathy is also not his forte. He heartlessly says, “This one had a hard time with that” when referring to his wife’s mother’s death.
Every pot finds a lid.
Many were quick to accuse Melania of being a despicable piece of propaganda even before seeing it. It’s not. Propaganda has a point. Forceful tools of hatred like Triumph of the Will and Birth of a Nation had evil purpose.
Melania can be mentioned in the same sentence as these films but only remains as a staged puff piece - a cynical attempt by Jeff Bezos to curry favour with Trump and an anti-documentary cash-grab orchestrated by people who only care about money and the furthering of empty mythologies designed to feed the Trump brand. And by the time the film ends with a suspiciously long list of Mrs. Trump’s supposed achievements as First Lady (none of which we actually get to witness), you’ll be too bored to notice - much less want to march for the Trump cause.
So what is Melania? Ultimately, it’s a shallow, 104-minute-long vanity project whose staggeringly misjudged timing reveals it to be the ultimate "F*ck you”.
The release of Melania comes at a time when the Trump administration’s actions have led to innocent people being shot, creating fear, anger and grief across America. The images of Melania Trump picking out expensive outfits, spouting ‘wisdom’ about shared humanity, and demanding audiences to sympathise with her own grief don’t land so well in the context of tragedy.
And in case you needed another reason to want to avoid Melania, the film also hits theatres when its director Brett Ratner, already accused of sexual assault by multiple women in 2017 (denied claims that included one allegation of rape), has appeared embracing a young woman alongside sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in images recently released by the US Department of Justice.
But much like the First Lady's infamous “I don’t really care, do you?” jacket, Melania is the embodiment of that very sentiment. A bird flip from those who only care about themselves.
One could laugh at how transparent it all is, if it wasn’t so soul-crushingly bleak. The cosmic harlequinade continues.
Melania is out in select theatres now and will be available to stream in the coming weeks.
