To call Melania is a documentary is an insult. Even though movies like Nanook of the North and Super Size Me have been exposed for faking a lot of the content, they pale in comparison. And to call it a vanity project is an insult to all the vanity projects Jennifer Lopez and Will Smith make. That’s how bad it is.
Supposedly, this “documentary” was filmed over three weeks Jan. 1-Jan. 20, 2025. But I don’t believe it. There’s too many scenes and shots here that look like they were craftly storyboarded and blocked. There’s no fly-on-the-wall feel people documentarians like Barbara Kopple or Joe Berlinger and the late Bruce Sinofsky brought to their films. There’s no intimacy, natural actions or spontaneity as it all feels manufactured.
Now, a lot of celebrities and famous people have had final say over what does and doesn’t make it in the final cut. Coming around the same time, Survivor celebrates his 50th season, we live in a society now where the average Joe and Jane know about lighting and editing. A lot of celebrities have made these fluff pieces lately but there’s no feeling of catching the subject matter off guard. Recent documentaries like Becoming Eddie and Sly showed Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone speaking to the camera and recounting moments of their life that you cant’t find on Wikipedia.
Even when Melania goes to a Catholic church on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death, it feels more like a photo op. (They also shamelessly use footage of Jimmy Carter’s funeral procession, I’ve heard.) In Madonna: Truth or Dare, when the pop diva visited her own mother’s grave, there was a somber, sentimental feeling. Madonna lost her mother when she was a child and she feared she herself would never live past 30 too. Even though her then-boyfriend Warren Beatty famously quipped “She doesn’t want to live off-camera, much less talk,” it showed she could be human.
And Beatty’s own appearance showed signs their relationship was on thin ice and almost over. In a voice-over that seems heavily scripted, Melania talks so monotonously you ever wonder if it’s actually her or someone filmmaker Brett Ratner hired to make us believe it was her. There’s also several times she refers to Donald as “my husband.” They’ve been married for over 20 years and together even longer. Yet, there’s no intimacy either in the voice-over or on screen.
There’s also many shots of the Trumps from behind as we hear them speaking. I’m sure it’s ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement). Even during a phone call between the two that is from far away, it never feels intimate like the talk between a married couple that can finish each other sentences and know what the other is thinking. It’s obvious they don’t know how to be married off-camera, much less talk.
Donald appears very little in the documentary, which is surprising, and seems to be acting differently when on-screen. Their children make cameos at the inauguration which is flooded out by butt-kissing commentators they’d make Joe Buck cringe.
No, in most of the scenes, she surrounds herself with sycophantic people who have more or less been told what to say and to smile every time they see her. The whole documentary is so tone-deaf, even the most WASPish Karens can see how out of touch it is. If someone thought this might actually make Melania more relatable as she flies on her own jet plane and stands around in a gold-platted penthouse overlooking Central Park, they were mistaken.
It’s obvious to anyone that Melania has been milking this whole marriage and her role as “First Lady” for her own benefit for years. This makes me wonder about Barron and how it was just a deal between Donald and Melania to produce him another son who is not as pathetic as Eric, even though Barron is showing the Trump assholery is very much hereditary.
Now, this movie has been under scrutiny as the $40 million paid for it was possibly a bribe. Yeah, no shit! Ten years ago, Donald and Jeff Bezos didn’t really care for each other. Bezos gives them $40 million and Donald pulls back some regulation on Amazon. Everyone knows that Donald loves money and gifts.
(On a side note, it is funny listening to the footage of Donald saying America won’t be a “warmonger. It’s just another quote he said that is contradictory.)
But I wonder what Ratner has to get out of this. After his career hit the skids amidst the sexual assault and harassment claims, he fled (or emigrated if you may) to Israel a few years ago. There’s also discussion a fourth Rush Hour is in development with Ratner helming it even though it’s been almost 20 years since the last one which was poorly received.
Mostly, I think this was made in a vain and futile attempt to make Melania more likeable as she isn’t viewed as favorable from both sides. MAGA and conservatives have a strong distaste for women who they don’t view as sex objects. They’ve spent decades criticizing Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden for their appearances. Shamedly, Melania is the same opportunist they have accused all former First Ladies of being.
It’s no surprise Melania spent four weeks in theaters before being pulled making only $16.7 million. I’m sure a lot of people were either forced to go to this by their church and civic groups or people bought up tickets online to make it seem like it was a big draw. This movie is so boring and moves at a snail’s pace that even Terrence Malick would fall asleep. Even Gus Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy” movies had more action.
And one of the worst scenes of the movie is when Ratner has the Trumps trying to recreate the nightclub entrance scene from Goodfellas as The Crystals “Then He Kissed Me” plays as they walk hand in hand from a gala to their procession of cars.
Jimmy Kimmel may have made a joke at the recent Oscars about how this wasn’t nominated. But I’m sure it will sweep next year’s Golden Raspberry Awards.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 