Melania — the somehow widely released documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, for some reason directed by disgraced action filmmaker Brett Ratner and heavily funded by Amazon — is finally in theaters. Across the globe, brave but wary film critics, none of whom were allowed to review the film prior to its release, are doing their duty and sitting through it so you don’t have to. Here’s a updating roundup of the highlights of their lowlights (as well as good reviews, if we can find any).

Consequence’s Liz Shannon Miller says don’t call this a documentary:

Describing Melania as a documentary implies that there’s meaningful, thoughtful intention to its construction, which is very much not the case. Call it a document, instead, of 20 days in the First Lady’s life circa January 2025, with all the weight and depth of a Post-it. One that cost Amazon MGM Studios $40 million to acquire, and $35 million to promote. (No idea why.)

She adds that Brett Ratner really sucks at propaganda:

This is Ratner’s first time directing a documentary (he’s produced several others) and… look, Leni Riefenstahl was a terrible person, but at least she had some style. The accused sex pest/confirmed hack, meanwhile, captures the proceedings with all the flair of an HGTV show. Occasionally, the footage shifts to approximate 16mm footage, the one attempt at creating visual interest on screen, but it feels like a lame effort at trying to give these moments the weight of history.

Ratner’s most remarkable achievement as a filmmaker is his portrayal of Inauguration Day, which consumes close to 30 minutes of the film. Anyone passionate about American politics and traditions knows that the rituals surrounding this country’s peaceful transition of power are fascinating, rich with history and meaning. Which is why it’s honestly a feat that Ratner captures it in the most flat, lifeless, and boring way possible.

But not very revealing one, as our Curbed colleague Adriane Quinlan points out:

We don’t forget that she’s a model; she takes the passageways like one, confidently clacking down them in her stilettos. But besides the walk, she does little else in them, revealing either that she has no power, no interest in revealing it, or her sphere of influence is only as big as a dinner table. A meeting at the office of inauguration event planner David Monn shows Monn reminding her what she’s doing there. The party is at a venue “which, you remember, we chose,” he tells her as they talk about the details of the table setting. “If you remember, we chose this fabric first,” he says. The insistence feels more like he’s trying to pretend his passive guest was one actively involved than placating a fussy client. At a similar meeting with Tham Kannalikham, the interior designer planning the family’s move into the White House, Melania has only one note: the suggestion that Barron Trump, no longer 10 years old, might need a larger bed. It’s all very strange, especially when the voice-over claims a fashion-designer mother taught her that “even the smallest detail matters” and that her education gave her “a sophisticated design approach.” Shown the invite to the party, she comments, “So beautiful. You know some people frame it?” Of course he does. Hosting, decorating, and social causes — these are all in the typical realm of a First Lady, but Melania seems to be sleepwalking through them.

Read the rest of Adriane’s observations here.

Writes William Thomas at Empire:

In 1935, Adolf Hitler commissioned director Leni Riefenstahl to make Triumph Of The Will, a highly nationalistic and likely heavily staged account of the Nazi Party’s 1934 Nuremberg rallies. It was a key moment in the history of propaganda films, a coldly fascistic conceptualisation of Germany as the Nazis hoped to recast it, produced with full participation and collaboration of an authoritarian regime. Melania, on the other hand — a new documentary about Melania Trump, wife of President Donald Trump — is more like Triumph of the Shill. It is political propaganda at its most transparent — cynical, pointless, and very, very boring.

He also notes the missed opportunity:

There is no drama to speak of, no tension, no narrative arc. Melania’s life story is undeniably fascinating: a former model and beauty queen, born in Soviet-era Yugoslavia, an immigrant who improbably clawed her way to the top, making the White House her home — twice. Within her life, you can surely find the story of America in microcosm: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to start a luxury jewellery line! As a public figure who rarely gives interviews, she is a mystery, a cipher hiding behind designer sunglasses, surely waiting for her story to be told.

But this film is uninterested in backstory, in delving even remotely under the surface.

The........

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