'Melania': A documentary in search of a subject

Widely criticised as little more than a propaganda piece, ‘Melania’ is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Digital editor Dan Jensen sat through all 104 minutes so you don’t have to.

THERE IS A MOMENT in Melania where the First Lady remarks that her inauguration outfit will one day sit in a museum.

It is one of the few moments in the film where anything remotely resembling ambition appears on screen.

Brett Ratner’s Melania is being marketed as an intimate documentary portrait of one of the most enigmatic First Ladies in modern history. It is not that. It is not investigative, revelatory or even especially curious. Calling it a documentary feels generous. It is closer to a prestige promotional reel, wrapped in expensive cinematography and delivered with the narrative depth of an Instagram carousel.

At 104 minutes, Melania somehow manages the remarkable feat of following its subject almost everywhere while learning almost nothing about her.

By the end of it, viewers will know that Melania Trump likes fashion, interiors, expensive things and being surrounded by expensive things while discussing other expensive things. Beyond that? The cupboard is remarkably bare.

This is a woman who has lived one of the strangest public lives imaginable. Immigrant model. Wife of a property mogul turned President. First Lady during one of the most divisive political eras in modern American history. Subject of endless speculation and tabloid mythology.

Yet Melania treats all of this with the urgency of a luxury real estate tour.

The film mostly follows Melania wandering through immaculate rooms, preparing events, sitting in cars, stepping off planes and maintaining one of approximately two facial expressions available in the Trump cinematic universe: “mild approval” and “slightly firmer mild approval”.

The strangest part is that the film eventually lists numerous accomplishments from her tenure as First Lady during its closing moments. One immediately wonders: Why wasn’t any of this the film?

Those achievements, initiatives and public projects were apparently deemed less interesting than extended sequences of moving between buildings.

The result feels oddly insulting, not because it argues anything controversial, but because it seems to assume viewers will be satisfied simply watching extraordinary wealth and power glide past the camera for nearly two hours.

Private jets. Grand estates. Motorcades. Endless opulence. The effect is less insight and more “look what we have”.

Even moments that should carry emotional or historical weight are oddly mishandled. During scenes surrounding former President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral, attention drifts instead toward Melania reflecting on the death of her mother a year earlier. What should have been a solemn national reflection becomes strangely self-referential.

Political framing fares no better. Appearances by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are edited with all the subtle neutrality of cable news at election time.

Then there is the matter of the film itself.

Melania marks Brett Ratner’s first directing effort in over a decade, following multiple sexual misconduct allegations he has denied. Ratner’s return alone guaranteed scrutiny. Add Amazon’s reported US$40 million (AU$56 million) licensing deal (the highest price ever paid for a documentary), extensive marketing spend and Melania Trump’s editorial involvement, and critics inevitably began asking whether this was documentary filmmaking or reputation management with a Hollywood budget.

The criticism has been fierce, with reviewers describing the film as propaganda, an infomercial and a ‘journey into the void’. Frankly, they are not wrong.

What is frustrating is that there may genuinely have been an interesting film here.

Melania Trump remains an opaque figure. Was she reluctant? Strategic? Detached? Performing a role? Resisting one? The film asks none of these questions.

Instead, Melania behaves as though proximity itself is enough. Put the camera near power and meaning will magically emerge.

It does not.

For all its access, money and polish, Melania feels oddly vacant. It is a lavishly produced shell, a documentary in the same way a showroom mannequin is a biography.

Beautifully dressed. Perfectly lit.

And completely empty.

‘Melania’ is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. We don't recommend you waste your time on it.

You can follow digital editor Dan Jensen on Bluesky @danjensen.bsky.social or check out his podcast, Dan and Frankie Go To Hollywood. Follow Independent Australia on Bluesky @independentaus.bsky.social and on Facebook HERE.