‘Melania’ Review: A Tedious, Criminally Shallow Propaganda Puff Piece

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you’re doing it right, film criticism is a full-contact sport. Think of us as the defensive line, throwing ourselves in harm’s way to protect our readers from cinematic concussions. And readers, I just took one for the team. Brett Ratner’s tasteless, tedious, criminally shallow propaganda puff piece “Melania” is nearly two hours of self-congratulatory torture. The film records the 20-day build-up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration from the perspective of First Lady Melania Trump, and I have no idea why she was okay with this movie being released, because Brett Ratner couldn’t find the humanity in a funeral. 

Literally. He couldn’t find the humanity in a funeral. The film includes footage of President Jimmy Carter’s funeral service and yet it gives no s–ts about Carter as a human being, or a president, or even a corpse. In “Melania,” the entire framework for Carter’s funeral is that it reminds her of her deceased mother, so Carter doesn’t even matter. His death is just a tedious distraction from what she really wants to do. Granted, what she really wants to do is visit a church and light a candle, which seems sympathetic until Ratner hits us with a snazzy live recording of “Amazing Grace,” cued up so the applause hits when Melania lights a wick. Honestly, I don’t know how you could make grief look more performative.

Until the litany of accusations t-boned his career, it seemed like Brett Ratner’s biggest contribution to movie history was not getting in Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker’s way. The director, who thought it would be fun to give Roman Polanski a cameo in the “Rush Hour” movies, spent most of his career orbiting mediocrity, and the orbit was decaying. Ratner knew where to put a camera — in that he understood you need wide, medium and close-up shots so the editor has something to work with — but he never demonstrated any interest in the human condition, or that he had any capacity for subtlety. He’s a generic genre guy, and he’s uniquely ill-suited to make a documentary of any kind. 

Ratner was given what looks like unprecedented access to the inner world of a First Lady, but when he finally asks Melania a personal question — an eternity into this movie’s infernal runtime — all he can think to ask is who her favorite recording artist is. She says Michael Jackson. (I’ll just let that sit there for a second.)

Unfortunately, this means we’re now forced to listen to Melania Trump and Brett Ratner sing, badly might I add, an impromptu duet of “Billie Jean.” Ratner actually shouts, “Are we doing carpool karaoke with Melania?!” as though he just won a car ride with a celebrity off the back of a cereal box, as opposed to making a documentary with cinematic or historical value.

Then again, Ratner has more chemistry with Melania Trump than her husband. I repeat, Ratner had unprecedented access, and yet he couldn’t find a single interaction between Donald and Melania Trump where it looks like they’re interested in each other. The first time we hear the President’s voice he’s calling to talk about the election results. Melania says she didn’t watch them. Then she stares dead-eyed into the middle-distance while he raves about how amazing he was. Then she hangs up, looking distracted. And this is the documentary that’s supposed to make them look good.

Melania Trump seems to have a lot of control over this production. She narrates herself, giving intimate information about how she feels at any given moment. Which is good, because you’d never know from watching her. Then again, you’d never know from listening to her either. She gives the most lifeless, monotone voice-over since Harrison Ford’s intentionally terrible V.O. in the theatrical cut of “Blade Runner.”

Ratner seems to have only interviewed a few other people, and they’re mostly fashion designers and interior decorators. We spend a lot of time with Melania Trump as she works on her inaugural dresses. We spend significantly less time as she interacts with world leaders in her attempt to help children — which mostly consists of asking the First Lady of France what she’s doing about it — but also offering very, very brief solace to a former hostage hoping to free her husband.

Most of the time, Ratner would rather look at her shoes. The closest thing “Melania” has to a story arc concludes when she finally takes her heels off at 2 a.m. on Inauguration Day. The audience actually sighed with relief. I guess there wasn’t much more to latch onto, although some people did chant “USA! USA!” a few times. (Yup, that’s the country we live in, alright. Well played.)

“Melania” is the feature film version of that wedding video in “Love Actually,” the one where the best man spent the whole event obsessively filming the bride. By the time inauguration night is over, Donald Trump leaves Melania and Ratner while he goes off to do whatever he’d rather be doing instead. Ratner made a film that makes Ratner look more invested in Melania Trump than her husband, which is a really weird vibe to shoot for. 

Although the film ends with a comically large number of chyrons claiming Melania Trump changed the office of the First Lady forever — by doing hitherto unthinkable things like [checks notes] meeting the victims of natural disasters — the film’s laser-focus on fashion suggests that human interest is a side hustle. “Melania” concludes with a glamorous photo shoot in the White House because, according to Brett Ratner’s movie, that’s what the White House turned into: A gaudy two-dimensional backdrop that only exists to feed the ego of its current residents, who claim to care about other people, but spend all their time focusing on how good they look while making those claims. 

Meanwhile, innocent people are being shot and killed in public by these people’s secret police. They could be doing something about that, but they’d rather sell tickets so you can get a good look at their shoes and hear them sing in the back seat of their limousines. Now that’s cinema. Unfortunately.

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