Melania at the Multiplex
Be honest—this is ridiculous.
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Culture
/ February 2, 2026
Melania at the Multiplex
Packaging a $75 million bribe from Jeff Bezos as a vapid, content-challenged biopic.
Elizabeth Spiers
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First lady Melania Trump at the Kennedy Center premier of Melania.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
When disgraced sex pest Brett Ratner volunteered to be Melania Trump’s cinematic hagiographer, it was clear that the resulting product would be slick, vapid, and disinclined to force viewers to activate more than one brain cell at a time. It was also fitting and predictable that when presented with a choice of documentarians, the Trumps opted for the guy responsible for Rush Hour 3: Get me a Leni Riefenstahl, but without the talent!
Given all that, my expectations for Ratner’s documentary about the first lady in the run-up to the second Trump inauguration were fairly low to begin with. But after having suffered through it for an hour and 44 excruciating minutes in a largely empty theater—15 moviegoers total, at least four of which were journalists—it seems that they were not low enough. On a scale from “fantastic” to “not worth the money,” I’d rank it as “I should be able to sue for personal injury and emotional distress.”
Amazon paid $40 million for the movie, with an additional $35 million marketing budget, and $28 million of that went directly to Melania Trump. In the inauguration scenes, the camera pans to various tech billionaires—Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and, most importantly, Jeff Bezos. It is a little surreal to watch an oligarch bribe a president in such a public fashion, and then try to present it to the American public as entertainment—or worse, an important historical document. As the latter, it’s more accurately described as propaganda, and I’ve had root canals that were more entertaining.
It is also not a documentary by industry standards. The subject is also a producer, and she speaks a highly scripted voiceover in a stilted cadence that makes your car’s GPS sound warm and inviting. This is not just my opinion. Melania herself says it’s not a documentary but “a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights, and moments.” This is downwardly defining “creative, ” “perspective,” “insight,” and possibly even “moments.”
The film opens to Melania leaving Mar-a-Lago professionally dressed and made up, striding atop towering stilettos. She steps into a motorcade of black town cars and SUVs, which is then filmed from above via drone, capturing the expanse of the property in a way that will probably be slotted into a real estate ad if Trump decides to sell it. The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is playing, which seems …
Be honest—this is ridiculous.
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Current Issue
Culture
/ February 2, 2026
Melania at the Multiplex
Packaging a $75 million bribe from Jeff Bezos as a vapid, content-challenged biopic.
Elizabeth Spiers
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
First lady Melania Trump at the Kennedy Center premier of Melania.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
When disgraced sex pest Brett Ratner volunteered to be Melania Trump’s cinematic hagiographer, it was clear that the resulting product would be slick, vapid, and disinclined to force viewers to activate more than one brain cell at a time. It was also fitting and predictable that when presented with a choice of documentarians, the Trumps opted for the guy responsible for Rush Hour 3: Get me a Leni Riefenstahl, but without the talent!
Given all that, my expectations for Ratner’s documentary about the first lady in the run-up to the second Trump inauguration were fairly low to begin with. But after having suffered through it for an hour and 44 excruciating minutes in a largely empty theater—15 moviegoers total, at least four of which were journalists—it seems that they were not low enough. On a scale from “fantastic” to “not worth the money,” I’d rank it as “I should be able to sue for personal injury and emotional distress.”
Amazon paid $40 million for the movie, with an additional $35 million marketing budget, and $28 million of that went directly to Melania Trump. In the inauguration scenes, the camera pans to various tech billionaires—Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and, most importantly, Jeff Bezos. It is a little surreal to watch an oligarch bribe a president in such a public fashion, and then try to present it to the American public as entertainment—or worse, an important historical document. As the latter, it’s more accurately described as propaganda, and I’ve had root canals that were more entertaining.
It is also not a documentary by industry standards. The subject is also a producer, and she speaks a highly scripted voiceover in a stilted cadence that makes your car’s GPS sound warm and inviting. This is not just my opinion. Melania herself says it’s not a documentary but “a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights, and moments.” This is downwardly defining “creative, ” “perspective,” “insight,” and possibly even “moments.”
The film opens to Melania leaving Mar-a-Lago professionally dressed and made up, striding atop towering stilettos. She steps into a motorcade of black town cars and SUVs, which is then filmed from above via drone, capturing the expanse of the property in a way that will probably be slotted into a real estate ad if Trump decides to sell it. The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is playing, which seems …
Melania at the Multiplex
Be honest—this is ridiculous.
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Current Issue
Culture
/ February 2, 2026
Melania at the Multiplex
Packaging a $75 million bribe from Jeff Bezos as a vapid, content-challenged biopic.
Elizabeth Spiers
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
First lady Melania Trump at the Kennedy Center premier of Melania.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
When disgraced sex pest Brett Ratner volunteered to be Melania Trump’s cinematic hagiographer, it was clear that the resulting product would be slick, vapid, and disinclined to force viewers to activate more than one brain cell at a time. It was also fitting and predictable that when presented with a choice of documentarians, the Trumps opted for the guy responsible for Rush Hour 3: Get me a Leni Riefenstahl, but without the talent!
Given all that, my expectations for Ratner’s documentary about the first lady in the run-up to the second Trump inauguration were fairly low to begin with. But after having suffered through it for an hour and 44 excruciating minutes in a largely empty theater—15 moviegoers total, at least four of which were journalists—it seems that they were not low enough. On a scale from “fantastic” to “not worth the money,” I’d rank it as “I should be able to sue for personal injury and emotional distress.”
Amazon paid $40 million for the movie, with an additional $35 million marketing budget, and $28 million of that went directly to Melania Trump. In the inauguration scenes, the camera pans to various tech billionaires—Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and, most importantly, Jeff Bezos. It is a little surreal to watch an oligarch bribe a president in such a public fashion, and then try to present it to the American public as entertainment—or worse, an important historical document. As the latter, it’s more accurately described as propaganda, and I’ve had root canals that were more entertaining.
It is also not a documentary by industry standards. The subject is also a producer, and she speaks a highly scripted voiceover in a stilted cadence that makes your car’s GPS sound warm and inviting. This is not just my opinion. Melania herself says it’s not a documentary but “a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights, and moments.” This is downwardly defining “creative, ” “perspective,” “insight,” and possibly even “moments.”
The film opens to Melania leaving Mar-a-Lago professionally dressed and made up, striding atop towering stilettos. She steps into a motorcade of black town cars and SUVs, which is then filmed from above via drone, capturing the expanse of the property in a way that will probably be slotted into a real estate ad if Trump decides to sell it. The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is playing, which seems …
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