The Art of the Dull: Melania is a Masterclass in Vacuity

Rating: 0/5

Written by Denise Breen

Runtime: 104 minutes (feels like 104 years)

I watched Melania to see if it's as bad as you might think and, it's worse. To call Melania a film is an insult to celluloid. To call it a documentary is an insult to journalism. To call it "reality TV" is an insult to the narrative cohesion of The Real Housewives.

Released into US cinemas and on some streaming platforms with the pomp of a coronation and the soul of a press release, Amazon MGM’s $40 million acquisition is less a movie and more a hostage video filmed inside a Neiman Marcus. Thankfully it doesn't look like it will be getting a cinematic release outside the US.

Directed by Brett Ratner—whose return to cinema is as welcome as a termite in a wooden leg—this 104-minute exercise in high-definition narcissism offers "unprecedented access" to the First Lady’s life in the same way a security camera offers access to a bank vault: you see the movement, but you never get near the money.

The premise, if one can squint hard enough to find it, tracks the 20 days leading up to the 2025 inauguration. We are promised an intimate look at the woman behind the enigma. What we get is a series of slow-motion tracking shots of stilettos clicking on marble, accompanied by voiceovers that sound like they were generated by an AI instructed to write "inspirational quotes for people who hate reading."

"I move forward with purpose, and of course, style," Melania intones over footage of her inspecting a golden egg filled with caviar. It is a moment of unintentional comedy so pure it almost saves the film.

The film’s "action" consists entirely of walking. Melania walks down halls. Melania walks to SUVs. Melania walks onto planes. She moves through the frame with the glacial detachment of a woman who has legally trademarked her own indifference. In one particularly tone-deaf sequence, she watches news footage of California wildfires with the same flat affect one might use when noticing a smudge on a windowpane.

Ratner’s direction is startlingly inept, treating his subject not as a human being but as a piece of expensive taxidermy to be lit from the left. He attempts to inject drama into the mundane—planning a dinner menu is treated with the Hans Zimmer-esque gravity of a bomb disposal—but the stakes never materialize. Even a "heartfelt" segment regarding Jimmy Carter’s funeral is bizarrely pivoted to be about her own mourning, a narrative detour so solipsistic it will leave you gasping for air.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of Melania is its emptiness. There is no politics here, no ideology, not even a coherent defense of her husband’s administration. There is only the void. It is a $40 million selfie, filtered to oblivion, lacking a single pixel of genuine human emotion.

Melania is not just a bad movie; it is a cinematic black hole that sucks the energy out of the room. It is a "must-see" only for insomniacs and students of propaganda who wish to see how not to do it.

Avoid.