Melania is a fascinating excuse for a film, for many of the wrong reasons. Despite the biopic-like suggestion of the title, the glossy puff piece from film director Brett Ratner (of disaster and shoot ‘em up film fame) does not go deep on telling the First Lady’s back story or penetrating through her famously opaque, if elegant, cool. Instead, it traces the 20 days leading up to the 2026 inauguration regalia, with a tedious blow-by-blow accounting of that Trumped-up celebration, when the boss could start “making America great” (as he actually proclaims in a strategy room in the lead-up to the Big Day).
It’s possible to enjoy Melania through the moral queasiness that clings to it, as a kind of bastard child of Triumph of the Will and a slick, corporate, motivational film. Jeff Bezos reportedly floated the original concept at a Mar-a-Lago dinner in 2024 and then pumped a gazillion dollars into the production as a gift/bribe. Makes you think twice about shopping at Whole Foods.
Among the questions raised by this strange “doc-ish” concoction: Did the Rolling Stones really sanction the use of “Gimme Shelter” for use in the film? Oddly, the song — about ‘60s political upheaval and the deadly violence at Altamont — booms into the soundtrack in the opening scene, in which we breathlessly follow the First-Lady-to-be’s path from the paradisiacal Mar-a-Lago in a caravan of black SUVs to the waiting TRUMP plane. Again oddly, the music switches to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” about shady gold diggers and groupies. Did some music supervisor subversively sneak these songs into the mix?
For certain passages of the film, we can detach from the darker implications of the story and her connection to the commander in chief and admire her gliding effortlessly through gilded spaces and ambiences of spotless, decadent elegance. She works on inauguration fashion pieces with designer Hervé Pierre — resulting in the infamous obscuring, jumbo boater hat, like the assassin in El Mariachi, and the white dress festooned with what looks like diagonal swipes of black electric tape.
Unintentional comic moments sneak into the picture here. It was somewhat heartening to hear actual belly laughter in the Hitchcock Cinema & Public House this week when we hear Trump’s voice for the first time in the film, talking to Melania on the phone and boasting with fake-news-y statistics about his grand election win. I assume the audience shared my thought at that moment: Apparently, his compulsive mendacity is also shared with his wife in intimate moments.
Not that the film projects any kind of genuine intimacy. We get the sense that most of it is scripted, making Melania appear articulate and compassionate. She makes statements that can trigger general approval, such as “I love all people — if they’re good,” and “There should be no hate in the world.” Hear, hear. At one point, Trump meets his wife at an airport and says “You’re beautiful! You look like a movie star!” The parties involved are hoping this film makes her one. To quote a line from the film Hamnet, playing across the lobby in the Hitchcock, “Perchance to dream.”
One day, after the dust and the damage settles in the post-Trump days, Melania may be considered a quirky cult classic, a morally dubious and slightly absurdist enterprise. At this specific and fraught historical and political juncture, mid-nightmare, it is hard not to reflect on the legacy of horrors enacted by Melania’s husband in the year-plus since this film’s celebratory inauguration. We feel the scourge right here in Santa Barbara, in ICE-y bad behaviors, oil-finagling ways, and more evils to come, no doubt.
Another question raised by the film: Will this film end up biting Brett Ratner in the reputation department, akin to Leni Riefenstahl’s post-WWII stigma?
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