I watched the Melania Trump film so you don’t have to

Jan. 31, 2026, 6:00 AM EST

With the release of “Melania,” a film so devoid of substance that it feels wrong to call it a documentary, we might need to come up with a new word for shameless. Because shameless doesn’t seem harsh enough to describe the grotesqueness of releasing this cinematic farce at the end of one of the most brutal months in recent American history.

To be fair, when the release date was set, no one knew that the nation would be reeling from the fatal shootings of two Minnesota residents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Or how ICE agents would be terrorizing communities in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities. Or how heartbreaking images of Liam Ramosa 5-year-old Minneapolis boy snatched out of his driveway with his father, would blanket social media.

But that is the climate that greets “Melania,” a movie determined to inform audiences that first lady Melania Trump cares about nothing so much as the welfare of our children and the freedoms we hold dear as Americans. “No matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity,” she says in one of many platitude-filled voiceovers that are slathered across “Melania” like sugary icing on a cake baked with sugar, flour, eggs and heaping amounts of hypocrisy. “I will always use my influence and power to help those in need,” she insists in another.

Across some 104 minutes, the first lady delivers these blatantly scripted and meaningless narrations with all the conviction of someone who just woke up from a two-hour nap and can’t remember what day it is.

The details about this project raised a cascade of red flags well before it opened in multiplexes Friday. Amazon spent $40 million to acquire this behind-the-scenes study of Melania during the 20 days leading up to the 2025 inauguration, a move The New York Times recently characterized as a blatant attempt to curry favor with President Donald Trump. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is even among the wealthy tech titans seen attending a pre-inauguration candlelight dinner hosted by Melania Trump. “Our donors were truly the driving force behind our campaign,” she narrates.

It is one of the few honest things she says in the whole film.

“Melania” is directed by Brett Ratnerbest known for the decades-old “Rush Hour” franchise that President Trump recently pushed to reboot. In more recent years, Ratner has been accused of rape and sexual assault by multiple women (he denies the allegations) and his name surfaced in some of the Epstein files. Because apparently this vapid docu-endeavor didn’t already feel unsettling enough. (Also mentioned in the most recent release of Epstein files? Melania Trump.)

It appears that Ratner thought that just following Melania Trump around would provide a wealth of compelling cinematic material. Mission extremely not accomplished. Whatever one may have expected from a cinematic study of Melania Trump — Is she the power behind the throne? What is her relationship with her husband actually like? — nothing could prepare audiences for how shallow this dive into Trump World really is. I am not even talking about all the things it does in poor taste, including turning footage from Jimmy Carter’s funeral into a sequence about the death of Melania Trump’s mother a year prior. The film is poorly shot and edited, with Ratner repeatedly relying on the same imagery. The number of close-ups of Trump’s stilettos (sometimes heels, sometimes boots — she’s got range!) could break a cinematic record for the most unnecessary shots of a woman’s feet. (Yes, I am very familiar with Quentin Tarantino’s work.)

Whatever the truth of Melania the woman, “Melania” the work is incredibly boring. Over and over again, viewers must watch Mrs. Trump get into and out of cars, walk long distances inside various buildings, and attend meetings where she and her coterie of stylists and designers discuss such weighty issues as her inaugural ensemble or the new decor for the White House.

The details are more than even the first lady’s most ardent fans could possibly care to know. To the many Americans struggling economically, watching Melania Trump reveal the golden-egg-shaped caviar she plans to serve at her pre-inaugural dinner will read as a truly Marie Antoinette moment. This thing is basically “Let Them Eat Cake: The Movie.”

But because this depiction is, above all, an exercise in brand management, there is footage of Melania doing Serious First Lady Work, such as talking about her Be Best initiative with Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, or meeting with an Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas and is desperate to bring home her still-captive husband. (Title cards at the end that tout Melania Trump’s various accomplishments say that she helped get the man released after Trump took office.)

Even in interactions designed to make her seem kind, Trump seems stilted and uncomfortable. Ultimately, she remains a well-coiffed cypher. At no point do we get new insight into who she is because throughout the work, she glosses over her experiences without providing concrete or illuminating details. A film that’s supposed to allow her to reflect on her life is like watching someone try to write a book report about a book she didn’t read.

Melania’s interactions with her husband, too, convey little that hasn’t already been observed. There is minimal warmth between them, and President Trump is equally mindless in his responses to questions. “There’s nobody like her,” he says when Ratner, off camera, asks the president to talk about his wife. “She’s really difficult. But there’s nobody like her.” The most relatable moment is when the president asks his wife if she watched the congressional certification of his votes and she says no, visibly disinterested. As her husband goes on about how well he did, it’s clear she’s become a master at pretending to care what he says.

Melania is much less convincing at pretending to be a normal person. In one scene that takes place within a car, Ratner asks who her favorite musical artist is. She says Michael Jackson and mentions that she loves “Billie Jean.” That is a song about a man accusing a woman of lying about having sex with her, recorded by an artist accused of abusing children. Ratner then puts the song on and joins Melania to sing the lines, “People always tell me, be careful what you do/Don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts.”

One wonders: Do these people have any self-awareness, like at all? Perhaps the infamous Melania jacket from her husband’s first term said it best: I really don’t care, do u?

Jen Chaney is a freelance TV and film critic whose work has been published in The New York Times, TV Guide and other outlets.