The “Melania” movie is an instant classic — of opacity, of superficiality, of obliviousness. And that might be the point.
Its subject, the once and again first lady of the United States, remains unknown and unreachable throughout 100-plus minutes of stilted scenes and generic voice-overs. In a story that spans the 20 days leading up to last year’s presidential inauguration, Melania Trump is constantly on the move — in planes, in cars, in heels — but always at a distance, right in your face yet far removed from any moviegoer who might want to glimpse the person behind the sunglasses.
In 2024, I read the first lady’s memoir (it was also titled “Melania” — can a “Melania” podcast be far behind?) and found it indifferent, incurious and unabashedly on the make. And yet, compared with the movie, the book was better. At least the memoir told us something, however fleeting, about Melania Trump’s early life. It also revealed her support for abortion rights, and it laid bare her pecuniary ambitions. The movie, which feels like an extra chapter to the book, adds next to nothing. It’s a feat of filmmaking to spend so much time on one person and reveal so little.
“With this film,” she says, “I want to show the American people my journey.” Kudos to the first lady for not using “journey” therapeutically, but she takes the word too literally; much of the movie feels like a lonely travelogue as she flits between Florida and Washington and New York. There is no inner journey at all. When interviewing applicants to work for her in the White House, she says that her staff members must “share my vision because they are not just serving my office; they are serving the country.”
What is Melania Trump’s vision for the country? Beats me, and I watched this movie twice.
She says in the movie that her goal is to “evolve the role of first lady beyond formal social duties,” yet formal social duties take up the bulk of the action. The moments of highest tension surround alterations to her outfits for the inauguration festivities (“Here it needs to be much tighter,” she tells her designer, Hervé Pierre) or the big reveal of invitations and place settings (“No one, absolutely no one, has seen this yet,” an event planner tells her). When, with five days to go before the inauguration, the first lady returns to her designer with final requests, she explains that “my creative vision has reached its final version.”
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what can make you look good for your country.
There are a few moments in the movie that offer some humanity. When Melania Trump consoles a woman who was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose husband had not yet been freed, she shows the kind of compassion and connection you’d expect from a first lady. Another scene shows her at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, lighting a candle to mark the anniversary of her mother’s death. (“She came here often when she was in New York,” she tells the priests.)
Such instances aside, there is a ChatGPT quality to much of “Melania.” Throughout the film, which is more infomercial than documentary, the first lady’s descriptions and pronouncements lapse into gauzy meaninglessness:
“Every day, I live with purpose and devotion, orchestrating the complexities of my life while nurturing my family’s needs.”
“As America’s first lady, the real nobility is in becoming stronger than the person I was yesterday. This strength cannot come from the title. It’s a quiet force from within.”
“As first lady, I honor the importance of the White House and its very special place in our nation’s history.”
“My goal is to establish a coalition with other world leaders to help children.”
The political-speak jumble reaches its apex when Melania Trump reflects on a lunch with members of Congress on Inauguration Day. “As first lady, I constantly think about how our lawmakers can build dignity, create equal opportunity and foster compassion through the unity of all Americans.”
This reference to “unity” is not accidental. It comes up in the memoir as well, where Melania Trump recalls “embracing Donald’s message of unity” during the 2016 campaign. “We have a choice,” she wrote in her book. “To be torn apart by violence, hatred and division or to unite in a spirit of love, kindness and shared humanity. It is critical that we choose the latter before it is too late.”
Does she think we have chosen it — or that President Trump has?
It doesn’t matter; all that matters is that he must say it. In the movie, when the first lady sits in on her husband’s rehearsal for his Inaugural Address, she hears him declare that his proudest legacy will be that of peacemaker. “Peacemaker and unifier,” she interjects. He tells the filmmakers to keep that exchange out of the final cut; she insists that they retain it. He did end up adding the word in the speech. “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” he said. “That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier.”
In the film, that moment in the president’s address is edited in such a way that it seems he pointed to his wife immediately afterward to acknowledge the “unifier” line, though he did not actually do so when he delivered it in the Capitol Rotunda. Still, the episode is billed as a triumph for the first lady, as though by saying something and repeating it, it can become true, or it can at least seem true. On this point she has much in common with the president.
Late in the movie, she emphasizes her immigrant experience, but in a way that is decontextualized from her husband’s recent campaign — a campaign based on the promise of the mass deportation of those who are “poisoning the blood” of America, as he has repeatedly put it.
“Walking into the Capitol’s Rotunda, I felt the weight of history intertwined with my own journey as an immigrant, a reminder of why I respect this nation so deeply,” Melania Trump says. “Everyone should do what they can to protect our individual rights. Never take them for granted. Because in the end, no matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity.”
In her book, the first lady wrote that she urged the president to end the separation of families at the southern border during his first term. In the movie, the safety that concerns her most is that of her own family. When she and her husband meet with the director of the Secret Service to discuss security issues, she asks about the prospect of leaving the vehicle during an inaugural parade. “How could that be safe?” she asks. “I have concerns, honestly. And I know Barron will not go out of the car.”
Less than a year after her husband narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, Melania Trump’s fears are perfectly understandable, “especially with the last year,” as she obliquely recalls. Yet when I hear her worries about leaving the car, I fast-forward one year later, to when people are being pulled from their cars — or shot in them — by agents of her husband’s administration.
We all have concerns, honestly.
Even pedestrian movies have a high point, and in “Melania” it is undoubtedly the music. Viewers see the first lady singing along to “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson as she is driven to an airport in New York. (I say “see” because her voice is barely audible.) Later, as she departs from an inaugural ball, she laughs and hams it up for the camera while dancing to “Y.M.C.A.” These appear to be rare unscripted moments, though it’s hard to know for sure.
Yet the soundtrack also comes off as a bit of a troll. “Melania” begins with a long approach shot of Mar-a-Lago, to the sounds of “Gimme Shelter,” a 1969 Rolling Stones song about a land so tense that it is “just a shot away” from war, from the ravages of rape, murder, flood and fire. As the Trumps are saying goodbye to the Mar-a-Lago staff before heading to Washington for the inauguration, viewers hear the tune of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” — an intriguing choice for an incoming presidency bent on territorial expansion and aggressive use of executive power. And then as the Bidens fly away and the Trumps stroll back toward the White House, we hear Rossini’s overture from “La Gazza Ladra” (“The Thieving Magpie”), used in ultraviolent scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s dystopian film “A Clockwork Orange” and, more recently, in the second season of BBC’s “Sherlock,” when the archvillain Moriarty breaks into the Tower of London and adorns himself with England’s crown jewels, sitting on a throne and wielding a scepter.
It’s all a bit too on the nose.
For much of the movie, Trump hovers in the background — we first hear his voice more than 20 minutes into it — and when he appears, he is often focused on his wife’s looks. He introduces Melania Trump at a postinaugural celebration at the Capital One Arena in Washington as “my beautiful wife.” (He also introduces Barron Trump, a bit awkwardly, as their “very tall son.”) During the security discussions, he asks her if she has a “nice dress” for the inauguration and wonders if it “can compete” with the one she wore in 2017.
Her simple answer (“Watch,” she says) is the perfect response for a president fixated on how things play on television, on whether people look the part or seem right out of “central casting,” as he often puts it. It’s also the perfect message for viewers of “Melania.” You don’t have to know her; it’s enough to watch her.
For that, this movie does just fine.
When I went to see the earliest showing I could find in Washington on the movie’s opening on Friday, I encountered people from all walks of life — that is, from The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal, from CNN and The New York Times. “Is everyone here a journalist?” someone called out in the theater. “Are there any civilians here?” One lonely civilian fessed up. When I saw it again on Sunday, I seemed to be among civilians (a somewhat older crowd, not a notebook in sight) who appeared to enjoy themselves.
The movie had a better-than-expected opening weekend (about $7 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada), though still a long way from the $75 million that Amazon spent on acquiring and promoting the movie. Nonetheless, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and executive chairman, makes out quite well. The movie chronicles Trump’s candlelight dinner at the National Building Museum on the eve of the inauguration, and Melania Trump gushes over the guests, emphasizing the “elegance and sophistication of our donors,” calling them the “driving force behind the campaign and its philosophy.” In that moment, the camera glides over a smiling Bezos. No subtlety here.
Early in “Melania,” Pierre takes great pride in the dress that the first lady would wear for the balls. “What is fascinating about this dress — you don’t see any seam at all,” he says. “This piece is only one piece. It’s a mystery.” When people look at it, he imagines, they will marvel at its design. “They will say, like, ‘How did they construct the dress? I don’t see anything anywhere!’”
This movie left me with much the same feeling. The surface is all there is. I don’t see anything else, anywhere. The movie ends, fittingly, with an extended photo shoot of the first lady. Then the word “Melania” flashes on the screen, and with the crackling sound of a flashbulb, it’s gone.
Source photographs by Vasil_Onyskiv/Getty Images and Amazon MGM Studios, via Associated Press.
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