Presumably, Melania is meant to show us the woman behind the woman behind the man. It’s a lavish, beautifully shot documentary that deploys many of the tropes of commercial cinema (director Brett Ratner’s principle stomping ground until accusations of sexual assault – which he has denied – derailed his career in 2017). But actual revelations and insights into the first lady of the United States (FLOTUS, for short) are as thin on the ground as the hairs are on her husband’s head.

Melania Trump was a model before she became the girlfriend of property developer Donald Trump circa 1998. Born in Slovenia, she grew up watching her seamstress mother devote herself to the business of making things beautiful.

“My mother’s fashion talent and expertise cultivated my deep appreciation for great design,” she says in the voice-over narration that guides us through the 20 days leading up to her husband’s inauguration (his second) as president in January 2025. “From her wisdom, I grew to honour the craft, treasure the artistry, and respect the level of perfection required to create timeless pieces.”

Melania’s dedication to the finely honed surface of things is evident in every frame of this film, which she produced. It opens, after a sweeping drone shot across the ocean and onto the Trumps’ Florida palace, Mar-a-Lago, with a fitting for the outfit she will wear on January 20.

Soon after, we’re invited to marvel at the embossed A4 invitation and the gold-accented tableware for the candlelight dinner, thrown to honour “the elegance and sophistication of our donors … the driving force behind the campaign and its philosophy, the reason our victory is possible”.

Later, at said dinner, we see some of the guests: Elon Musk is among them. So too is Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon.

Bezos’ company paid $US40 million ($57 million) to acquire the rights to this film, of which $US28 million went straight to its subject. It is reportedly spending another $US35 million to market it.

That’s about 106 million in Aussie dollars, an extraordinary amount for what one might charitably term a vanity project, and uncharitably term softball propaganda for an administration that is edging ever closer to fascism by the day. But for influence and a slice of the space business (in which Bezos and Musk are fierce rivals), it’s probably a cut-price deal.

Melania talks a lot about the importance of family – and of her son, Barron, especially. She talks about her good works, which focus mostly on child welfare (her Be Best campaign targeted cyberbullying; her Fostering the Future program aims, among other things, to get foster children into tertiary education). And she espouses values that are hard to argue with, framing them through the prism of an immigrant who has made good.

“Everyone should do what they can to protect our individual rights,” she says near the film’s end. “Never take them for granted because in the end, no matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity.”

Precisely how she tallies that with the version of America her husband is busy creating is anyone’s guess, because other than those motherhood statements, what she thinks or feels is largely off limits.

She is, though, thoroughly committed to playing the role of dutiful and beautiful wife, paraded endlessly beside a smug and smirking Trump, holding his hand, dancing robotically at ball after ball. The insights into the pomp and ceremony of the inauguration are genuinely interesting, though. And the scene in which Melania breaks into a disco jig as YMCA comes on is a refreshing and rare moment of (seemingly) unscripted levity.

“There is much to accomplish in the next four years,” she says at the film’s end. Promising to “serve the American people once again”, she vows “I will move forward with purpose, and of course, with style”.

It’s hard to argue on the second point. Melaniais all about those perfect teeth, that great hair, that catwalk-friendly silhouette. But it’s impossible not to feel that the real purpose of this portrait is not insight, but rather distraction from the awfulness and corruption of her husband’s regime.

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/lavish-documentary-on-us-first-lady-beautifully-shot-but-short-on-substance-20260130-p5nyay.html

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