'Melania' Review: Brett Ratner's First Lady Documentary Is a Cheeseball Infomercial of Staggering Inertia
“Melania” is a documentary that never comes to life. It’s a “portrait” of the First Lady of the United States, but it’s so orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial. Is it cheesy? At moments, but mostly it’s inert. It feels like it’s been stitched together out of the most innocuous outtakes from a reality show. There’s no drama to it. It should have been called “Day of the Living Tradwife.”
The movie was shot, by director Brett Ratner and a trio of prestige cinematographers, over the course of the 20 days leading up to (and including) the 2025 Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump. And to the extent that it allows Melania Trump a whisper of personality or agency, it’s as a designer. She helps to tweak the design of her own outfits. She has chosen the color of the inaugural invitation envelopes (a lovely shade of scarlet). She offers design tips about the plates and flowers and glassware. And, during the first Trump presidency, she helped to redesign sections of the White House.
All of this plays out, in “Melania,” as if she’s planning her wedding. The movie opens to the strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” which makes it sound like the film is going to strike an attitude of defense against those who have been mean to Melania. But no, “Melania” is so studiously celebratory, like a piece of state-sanctioned propaganda out of 1960s Communist China, that it never even wades into those controversial waters.
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/melania-review-melania-trump-brett-ratner-1236645379/
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For my own curiosity, I learned they’re actually a subsidiary of Universal who, among other stuff, is the largest rights management company in the world. May only be coincidence but Bill Ackman is a 10% owner. Hope he sold the rights to Melania for a flat fee vs a percent of ticket sales…Lolol
ABKCO was founded by a guy who was the Stones manager at the start through ‘72.
Fun to see where it’s all getting used (beyond the first hooker’s flick).
https://www.abkco.com/licensing/
