She has no friends but everyone who works for her dresses like her
Melania’s appears an entirely airless existence, in which she glides solo about gilt corridors in absolute silence, David Lynch-style, observed by tight-lipped heavies. All her staff dress in deference to her, mostly in black, but sometimes – as in the case of her interior designer – in a matching camel-coloured three-piece suit. Candidates interviewing for assistant roles have also got the memo, lining up in a sea of monochrome, with buttery hair and prominent cross necklaces.
She hates anything baggy
About 30% of the film is devoted to high-stakes fittings for her inauguration outfits. “My creative vision is always clear and it’s my responsibility to share it with my team so they can bring it to life,” Melania explains in voiceover. This translates to her telling them to cinch stuff in. “More tension, tighter,” she commands about a collar. A coat needs to skim nearer her hips. A hat brim is reprimanded as “a little bit wiggly-woggly”. “I don’t know if we can cut it,” frets one assistant tailor about a blouse, to stressed violins on the soundtrack.
She’s uninterested in catering
While we learn that Melania is apparently in charge of everything about the inauguration-adjacent shindigs, we learn nothing of the menu save for the fact that the appetiser at one ball will be a golden egg, placed in an eggcup, on a plate. The first lady has no notes about this – what has laid it, whether it’s actually edible, if something alongside it might be nice – other than approval of its colour. She never eats or drinks.
She’s a gifted interior designer
“It’s important that timeless elegance shines through every element,” Melania shares of the planning of one ball, while giving approval to invites being posted out in gigantic red envelopes, such as a primary school class might choose to batch-send their lists to Santa. She’s eager rugs are cleaned and furniture steamed in the brief window between the Biden’s leaving the White House and the Trumps trooping back in. Other evidence of her expert touch comes in a glimpse of Renoir’s black-and-white-tastic La Loge, which occupies a wall of her office. It’s a print: the real thing is in the Courtauld Gallery in London.
She and Donald are very close
At one moment, Melania places her hand on her husband’s waist in a careful and significant gesture that is movie-shorthand for “we still have sex”. Filmgoers can also witness their continued passion when Donald attempts to negotiate her big hat and lean in for a kiss. “Nobody has endured what he has endured over the past few years,” she reports in sympathetic voiceover. But for most of the film, the couple are apart. He phones her at one point to brag about some sort of immense domestic political victory. “Great, well done,” she says, in the manner of someone trying to get a cold-caller off the line.
She and Barron are very close
Melania’s son says not a word in the film, but is seen in much of the final reel, bending gently like he’s cosplaying Igor. At one point his proud parents discuss him in the back of a limo. “He’s cute, we have cute conversations,” says the president. “Yeah, I love him,” his mother reveals.
Her favourite artist is Michael Jackson
“I met him once with Donald,” she tells the film’s director Brett Ratner in the back of a limo on the way to Mar-a-Lago. “He was very sweet, very nice.” Her favourite songs are Billie Jean and Thriller, she adds, before she and Ratner briefly duet on the former, like Carpool Karaoke on the highway to hell.
She’s really at home in black
The 20 days shown in the film include one spent at Jimmy Carter’s funeral and an afternoon at a memorial ceremony at Arlington cemetery. All coverage of the former is devoted entirely to a meditation on mourning her own mother, who died a year ago that day. It includes a very lengthy sequence in which she books out St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York so she can stalk around in private reverie, watched by stony security guards and grinning priests. At Arlington cemetery meanwhile, she cuts an unmistakably mafioso figure, striding in stilettos beneath a brolly and nodding significantly at strangers. The perkiest she gets during inauguration day itself is when she’s walking through a crypt.
Amazon gets some of its money’s worth
Whatever they’re losing in profits and credibility through distributing the film, Amazon head Jeff Bezos is glimpsed a couple more times in the movie than his tech mogul peers. That said, there’s a leg up for Tim Cook also as Melania makes video calls about campaigns to limit children’s screen time on her MacBook Air (raised to eye level on a copy of her autobiography) and the Apple CEO himself, as well as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, all get face time.
Melania is not apolitical
As well as constantly referring to herself as a world leader, and lengthy pre-credits title cards totting up her accomplishments, Melania makes a number of dramatic statements about her ambitions in office. These include the desire to “break all norms”, totally reinvent the role of first lady and consider how lawmakers might better do their jobs – something she thinks about “constantly”. Judging by the genuflection of those around her, such a self-image is not entirely unwarranted. “I’ll go everywhere with you, no problem,” Brigitte Macron tells her over video call – and she does mean policies, not sightseeing. Nor is Melania above including snarky shots of her husband’s predecessors: we see Barack Obama looking downcast at the inauguration, and Kamala Harris mardy while checking her watch.
Melania will not revolutionise cinema
Anticipation was high that the sum ($28m) paid by Melania to herself for not just starring in the film but producing it and overseeing much of the post-production, including the trailer and marketing, might result in something fresh for an art-form struggling to surface new voices. Sadly, such hopes will be dashed. Melania turns one of the most politically significant moments in recent history into an exhaustingly boring and chillingly vain autohagiography. Towards the end, Melania says of inauguration day: “Today was so rich with meaning, and since each moment was historic and filled with purpose, time no longer mattered.” It feels like a disclaimer for a film that demonstrates nothing of the former and feels like it lasts for ever.
