Nobody wants this
Whatever possessed the marketing geniuses at Amazon to think that people would be queueing up outside cinemas in the dead of winter to see a movie about a woman of no real discernible merit—save for the fact that she is married to a man of no real discernible merit who happens to be the president of a country sputtering, much like him, toward fiscal and moral bankruptcy?
How did Jeff Bezos even sign off on this? Amazon plunked down $40 million to acquire and distribute “Melania,” the documentary about the eponymous Melania Trump during the 20 days leading up to the inauguration of the second Trump administration in January 2025.
And I can’t imagine what would be so riveting about watching a woman who dresses like the queen of the “trad” wives, whose eyes are in a permanent squint, possibly the result of so much cosmetic surgery, over the course of 104 gruelling minutes.
The math ain’t mathing
The pre-opening hype teased a glimpse into the enigma that is Melania Trump. But then hype is always a tad hyperbolic, isn’t it? Contrary to what some might think, the enigma isn’t “What is she doing with him?” Honey, they’re cut from exactly the same cloth. The only enigma surrounding the current first lady of the United States—that nation of dwindling influence in the northern hemisphere that loves dropping bombs on countries that refuse to allow their resources to be extracted by foreign powers—is, how the hell was she granted an Einstein visa?
This visa, also known as the EB-1 visa, is purportedly reserved for people of “extraordinary abilities.” But what abilities, pray tell, would those be? Even as a model, she was hardly in the supermodel category. The math, I’m afraid to say, ain’t mathing.
The mystery deepens when one discovers, according to recent reports, that the convicted sex trafficker, rapist, and pedophile—and former high school math teacher—Jeffrey Epstein allegedly helped facilitate the approval of her visa. It almost sounds like the perfect setup for a honeypot operation, with Donald Trump as the unwitting but hardly unwilling trap.
One wonders if it’s an indication of US immigration officials’ (and America’s at large) susceptibility to celebrity that someone like Melania was granted an Einstein visa back in the early 2000s despite her lack of significant achievement, while a writer of immense literary talent, such as the Chinese novelist Yiyun Li, was denied residency. One wonders who wrote letters of support for the former Ms. Knaus when more than 20 literary heavyweights, including the likes of Salman Rushdie and New Yorker editor David Remnick, submitted testimonials to Li’s published and quantifiable extraordinary abilities.
Perhaps Melania’s nude magazine covers, well, wet—and whetted—the wheels of bureaucracy.
Nobody wants this
Speaking of Epstein, it comes as no surprise that the only director willing to take on the documentary was his buddy, the disgraced and disgraceful Brett Ratner—he of the 30-plus sexual assault accusations leveled by multiple women, including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge.
Birds of a feather and all that. Only in a world without ethical standards would a groper exiled from Hollywood for almost a decade feel at home in a White House populated by thieves, sex offenders, idiots, and warmongers, with Trump himself easily ticking all those boxes.
It’s also telling that two-thirds of the documentary’s production crew asked that their names be withheld from the credits. They must have done it for the money; back in late 2024 and early 2025, they might have thought they were lucky to be working. I suppose one can’t really blame them. Nevertheless, in the light of recent events, any association with the film in particular and the Trump administration in general may well prove toxic for their reputations.
And judging from early reviews and dismal (read: virtually nonexistent) ticket sales, “Melania” is an absolute dud, an undeniable flop worldwide, certifiably dead on arrival, and definitely not the $5 million opening day hit Amazon and the producers, among them Ratner and Melania themselves, anticipated.
A cinema in the UK showed exactly one ticket sold. Perhaps wanting to mitigate disaster, South Africa pulled the film out of theaters completely. It’s so bad, “if they showed this film on a plane, people would still walk out,” according to a comment erroneously attributed to the industry’s paper of record, Variety. The verdict is in: nobody, but nobody, wants this.
All of which makes the breathless raves from MAGA sycophants all the more bizarre—I’m looking at you, Daily Mail. One so-called journalist writes that the film “from beginning to end is grand, ornate and blazing with splendor,” adding that, “In one scene, Melania breaks into song—a rendition of Billie Jean from inside her motorcade. Yes, she’s just like us; she sings in the car and can’t resist the rhythm of a good Jackson hit.”
Save the gushing, please. I really don’t care, do you?
