Melania – the eponymous documentary film produced by America’s first lady herself, promoted by her husband and distributed by Amazon – was released on both sides of the Atlantic last month to pretty dire reviews. Critics were almost unanimous in their disdain. They described it as boring (some walked out), and as a purely promotional exercise for a wooden first lady, akin to ‘North Korea-style propaganda’. They claimed that it would never have been made had her husband, Donald Trump, not been president of the United States. Some even said its making was tantamount to a ‘bribe’. And the bottom line was: we went to see it, so you don’t have to.
Well, never one to pass up a challenge, I decided that, as a former Washington correspondent and regular commentator on the US, I had a duty to see it for myself. A cold, rainy afternoon, so typical of this winter, offered the perfect opportunity to do just that.
By today’s standards, it is not a long film at one hour and 40 minutes. And, I admit, that in some ways my impressions chimed with the critics’ consensus. There was not much change of register, as it plodded, diary-like, through the 20 days running up to Trump’s second inauguration. Parts of it were indeed a shameless exercise in self-promotion.
I would also add that Melania’s accent and stilted English can be pretty off-putting. As is much of the script – a stream of American Dream-type clichés, which can seem cloyingly artificial and overdone to many Europeans, especially Brits.
All that said, however, Melania – the real Melania – can probably manage quite well without an ear for language, given her other assets: her spectacular looks, her natural grace and her empathy – which you don’t often see in the news clips. Her exchanges with France’s Brigitte Macron in 2018, on help for deprived children, suggested a genuine warmth between two first ladies, as did her meetings with American-Israeli hostages, captured by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
Most interestingly, though, Melania is also a portrait of a professional – in her case a professional model and judge of fashion. And it is as the consummate professional, as well as a spectacular-looking human being, that she comes into her own. It’s here that you come closest perhaps to seeing the real Melania Trump.
So no, I wasn’t bored. Although the first lady largely maintains her steely carapace, there are glimpses of someone warmer and more spontaneous – especially when she talks, a little, about her early home life in Slovenia, where her mother was a seamstress.
What she learned at her mother’s knee has stood her in excellent stead. The most informative scenes, to my mind, are her appointments with her fashion and tailoring team. Here, you see a Melania less inhibited than often, and completely in her element.
What comes across is not just her own expertise. It is the mutual respect between her and her fashion team, and the perfectionism they share: just half an inch here, the lapel a bit wider, the collar a little tighter, the angle of the hat, the width of the trim, the length of a hem. And you can see what a difference those tiny details make in the end result.
Something similar applies when she is sitting for her official portrait. She attends to the lighting, the pose, the expression as a complete professional. The difference between the result and the more homely portraits of most of her predecessors, including Jill Biden, is stark.
As for her relationship with Donald Trump, not a lot is given away. You can read things both ways – the tiny touches and glimpses that suggest a close and long relationship, and an element of froideur. I reserve judgement.
The small-ish cinema was about half full, and – maybe because of the time, as well as the subject – the audience comprised mainly women of a certain age. What happened afterwards, though, was even more interesting than the documentary itself. First, pretty much everyone stayed through the credits. Then, first one person, then another, started talking about it, and about a dozen of us ended up in a discussion – until the cleaning crew wanted to throw us out.
The comments were almost universally positive. Everyone had enjoyed it and found it far more interesting than they had feared. They also thought the reviews were not just unwarranted – they were also unkind. Among particular points of interest was the insider view of the White House in the run-up to the inauguration, which showed just how formal and organised it is – up to and including the departure of outgoing president Joe Biden and his wife in the waiting helicopter.
I wondered whether the difference between the critics and the audience might have been a one-off. But it seems not. According to the aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, Melania has produced the widest gap ever in ratings between the critics and those it describes as ‘verified ticket-buyers’. According to its figures, critics gave an approval rating of 11 per cent, against 98 per cent for the paying public.
Some of that, of course, may be explained by the public being self-selected and drawn to the subject. Less kind suggestions – although with no proof – have been that a pro-Melania campaign set out to flood the ratings sites with fake positive views. Well, maybe. It seemed to me, though, that this was a genuine case of a paying audience with a real curiosity learning something – about the United States and an enigmatic first lady – that they did not know before. Critics, both here and across the Atlantic, could try a little harder to see a film they are predisposed to pan through the eyes of those who might pay to see it.
Mary Dejevsky is a writer and broadcaster. She was Moscow correspondent for The Times between 1988 and 1992. She has also been a correspondent from Paris, Washington and China.
