‘Melania’ Review: Brett Ratner’s First Lady Portrait Plays Like Accidental Comedy (Prime Video)

One of the funniest movies of the past few years—unintentionally so, or at least that’s my impression—Melania plays like a terrific comedy disguised as a documentary. If the world hadn’t turned so dramatic, violent and frankly dangerous since her husband Donald Trump returned to power, Brett Ratner’s film might be hilarious from beginning to end. Secretly, I suspect someone in the production—though probably not the director—realized that what they were really making was a comedy. After all, who without a slightly perverse sense of humor would open a documentary about the First Lady of the United States with a Rolling Stones song whose lyrics include “rape, murder / it’s just a shot away,” only to follow it with Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, about a woman claiming a child that isn’t his? Welcome to the Melania Show. Or, as the lady herself puts it: “My creative vision.”

Taken more or less seriously, Melania is a documentary in the same way a documentary from, say, North Korea might be. Carefully controlled and stage-managed by its subject—and her team of advisers—the film has essentially nothing to reveal: nothing about Melania’s life before Trump, nothing meaningful about their relationship, nothing personal at all. Instead it offers a chronicle of the days leading up to Inauguration Day, as she prepares to once again become First Lady. The details of that preparation, however, revolve mostly around dresses, invitations, decorative touches and assorted logistical trivia. That’s her “creative vision,” as she likes to call it.

What unfolds is an endless chain of events that bear little relation to what Melania claims she wants to accomplish in her role. Her voiceover speaks solemnly about the importance of the First Lady, about helping children, supporting the homeless, and contributing in some vague way to “peace in the world.” None of that appears in the film. What we actually see is a very rigid, highly controlled former model adjusting the fold of a dress, reconsidering the width of a collar, and expressing relief that she won’t have to wave to crowds during a street parade. Perhaps the cruelest moment—subtle, but still unpleasant—is the way she keeps bringing up the death of her mother while attending Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

There are wonderful moments scattered throughout, all very funny even if nobody on screen seems aware of it. Melania’s carefully composed “reaction faces,” the oddly flat way she talks about her son Barron, the near-total absence of the rest of the Trump family (apparently they didn’t negotiate their share of the deal), and the stark contrast between the gravity of her narration and the triviality of what we’re actually watching. Then there are the occasional appearances by the president himself, who at least possesses—comparatively speaking—a strange sort of personal charisma. To me it remains baffling, but clearly it works for some people. Next to his somewhat lumbering presence, Melania comes across like a retired Eastern European tennis player more concerned with keeping her hair in place than with anything else.

Presented as a sort of “gift” from Amazon to President Trump—Melania thanks the “donors” on camera while the film lingers lovingly on Jeff Bezos—Melania reaches levels of ass-kissing not seen since the days of Roman emperors. The result feels like little more than a house organ: a solemn chronicle of a few days in the life of a woman whose own voiceover ends up unintentionally supplying most of the humor. Not because of her accent, but because of what she says and how she says it. “It’s essential to be mentally strong,” the First Lady explains just before deciding the exact width of her jacket collar. And yes, it must be exhausting—about as exhausting as walking in those impossible heels.

To Melania’s credit, at least, the film’s central figure tries not to come across as unpleasant or openly offensive—she doesn’t always succeed, but the effort is noticeable. And she does possess, arguably, a bit more style than both the president and many other women who have held the role before her. That may be debatable—the hat alone looks sharp enough to decapitate someone—but within her particular milieu she does manage a certain air of elegance.

The other faint point in the film’s favor is that for roughly half an hour—out of its nearly unbearable two hours—nobody speaks. Ratner, a problematic figure whose personal controversies deserve their own article, simply films the behind-the-scenes of the inauguration ceremonies. In those moments the camera captures images that feel oddly candid, perhaps even unintended. At one point, from somewhere in the distance, a journalist can be heard shouting a question: “Will the United States survive the next president?” There’s no answer. Somewhere in the editing room, one suspects, someone understood the absurdity of what they were assembling. That maybe what we’re watching here are the last, awkward traces of a civilization quietly sliding into decline.