Melania, Part 1
Apr. 5th, 2026 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyYou’re welcome. Can atheist Jews be given sainthood? Because I would like some prayer candles with pictures of me in a blinged up goth outfit for what I have just endured.
A warning upfront: There is no way I can talk about this ahem-film without going into the sexual abuse of children, genocide, and the litany of grotesque crimes committed by the Trump regime and circle of ghouls around Jeffrey Epstein. It’s not funny but I’m going to make dark jokes about it because that’s how I cope with trauma. And dear readers, I have suffered trauma. I also cannot talk about this film without making some comments about people’s appearances, which I know is a sensitive point for many of us. If that kind of thing is triggering, might I suggest one of my reviews of slightly better movies like Left Behind or Atlas Shrugged?
It’s really difficult to know how to approach this film from a critical perspective, because there’s really nothing there. Nothing happens in it. It does not exist, as with Triumph of the Will or Birth of a Nation, as a piece of cinema meant to inspire horrific acts of genocide, because it’s not a piece of cinema at all. There’s no there there, as they say. It is as empty as Melania’s cold, dead eyes.
For those of us who enjoy fandom, there’s a quite useful framing of Watsonian vs. Doyleist that I wish would migrate to general use, because I think it's a good means through which we can understand creative choices in media. Any creative choice can be understood through an in-universe perspective (why does Dr. Watson think that this happened?) or a meta perspective (why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle choose to make this happen?). From a Doyleist perspective, the Melania movie could be 1.44 hours of a blank, black screen, and it would have served its purpose, which is an enormous bribe paid by Jeff Bezos to the Trumps, and a DEI program for Brett Ratner, who is unemployable in Hollywood due to being a sex pest. This is, in fact, why it exists and who it’s for, but other people have covered that, and it’s harder to make jokes about it.
From a Watsonian perspective I have to invent things to talk about, but I am a fiction writer so I’ll give it a go. The film consists largely of Melania, in various outfits, gliding from room to room while she narrates a ChatGPT-style monologue about how difficult her life is and how hard she works. But narrating to whom? It is fun to imagine an audience for this film. It’s surely not the MAGA faithful, who need loud explosions and fast camera cuts to hold their childlike interest. It’s not the liberals who must be brought into the national project of extermination and oppression; they will certainly not be convinced. I suspect not even Melania herself watched it.
I can only imagine that the most interesting in-universe explanation of this film’s existence is that it’s evidence for Melania’s inevitable show trial, to be played on loop as she’s led to the guillotine. This is “let them eat cake” extended to a cinematic run time, only for all the ostentatious wealth on display, not a single person actually consumes food during this movie. There are golden eggs but no one eats them. One imagines the viewer as a modern-day Robespierre listening with dispassionate interest as Melania is given her moment to speak her piece, before nodding solemnly to the executioner.
We begin with drone shots of Mar-A-Lago, the modern-day Versailles without the artistry, and then cut to a pair of stiletto heels. I am of the opinion that as a filmmaker, you can get away with the shoes-to-face shot of a woman once per film, and even then, it’s a tired trope, especially when you already know who the woman is. This movie does it repeatedly to fill its run time.
I’m not sure how much they paid the Rolling Stones for the use of “Gimme Shelter” (if I were Jagger or Richards, it would never be enough and I would simply say no and go back to extending my life through drinking the blood of virgins) but it is an inspired soundtrack choice, implying that Melania is “just a shot away” from freedom.
She walks for ages then gets into a car. Most of the movie, by volume, is Melania walking and then getting into a car. I tell my film students not to have too much footage of people walking because this is very boring to watch, but I’m not sure if Brett Ratner ever studied film or anything like that.
She gets on her private Trump jet. It’s an inspiring aesthetic choice to make a film about a woman who is physically incapable of changing her facial expression as a result of extensive plastic surgery.
I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about Mar-A-Lago Face. You don’t see a lot of it in this film beyond Melania’s own deformed features. As someone with a lot of insecurities around my own looks, I’m baffled. It makes some pragmatic sense for the women in Trump’s orbit to alter themselves to fit his personal warped standards of beauty, but it’s quite ugly in fact. The parallel, I guess, is spray-tan and ill-fitting suits that the men wear to signal not aesthetics but loyalty and wealth. They are so powerful that they don’t need to look good; they can in fact be aggressively ugly because what are you, peon, going to do about it?
Melania steps off the plane, now wearing a different outfit that I do think is one of maybe three decent looks in the whole movie. Dark Melania. She wears her sunglasses at night so she can so she can. I would fuck with those leather pants though. They’re good. She steps into a different car—this movie is obsessed with her travel through space in a way that Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye could only dream of—and the song switches to “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson.
Which is also an interesting choice, seeing as Michael Jackson, like Melania’s husband, allegedly also enjoyed molesting children and the song involves a guy getting cucked I guess? At least Michael Jackson is dead and doesn’t have to see his song used like this.
There’s a bunch of attempted clever cinematic bits like this, where she walks by a “Build the Wall” poster and another shot where she’s in front of a restaurant that says 45 on it.
Look, I’m really searching for material here, and a tracking shot of Melania walking in front of a dumpster that says “Royal” on it is about as visually interesting as this movie gets.
Anyway we’re now in Trump Tower in New York, and Melania is being fitted for one of the outfits she’ll wear on Inauguration Day. There are four fashion designers working on this. 
I think it’s probably awkward for the lead fashion designer because, like most of the professionals who work for Melania, he’s as gay as a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide, and her regime is built upon enforcing compulsory heterosexuality and gender norms. Anyway they fiddle with the fit, which is not quite up to her exacting standards, I guess. It looks roughly the same as all of her suits.
I’d probably watch a mid-budget period drama about this guy.
Anyway the collar of the blouse has too much flappy bits so they cut off the flappy bits. Dramatic! Will it work without the flappy bits? I’m in suspense.
Then she goes and meets with the event planner, who is also extremely gay. She references her background in architecture. It’s interesting because I thought her background was as a sex-trafficked mail order bride, but apparently she did study architecture for about a month before dropping out of school to do the mail order bride thing instead.
Anyway, the dialogue here is quite bad. Poor David, hoping to be spared from the first few waves of purges, explains the choices that Melania has made earlier for the inauguration balls. She monologues about how she has to do so much work planning and organizing every detail, but it seems that David does all the work and she just nods and approves. She repeats the last word in each sentence he speaks (“The golden egg and caviar. This is how it will be presented.” “Presented.”)
The invitation is in red, which she likes, and is her colour, and the decorations are in white and gold, which she likes, and are her colours. Notably she will never be shown wearing red or gold; they have her exclusively in black, tan, and white throughout the film.
What do we think the golden egg symbolizes?
I find this scene unsettling because the servant came over from Laos when she was 2, and if she doesn’t work up to Melania’s standards, she gets tossed into an unmarked van by ICE and deported to Sudan or something like that.
They’re getting along now, and they air-kiss each other’s cheeks while the lady talks about how the transition will go and furniture and such. I regret to tell you that this film does in fact pass the Bechdel Test.
This somehow segues into Melania’s main source of unhappiness, which is that her mother has died. I’m sure this is super sad for her but it’s also hard to emotionally connect with a woman whose face is incapable of communicating basic emotions like sorrow.
Back to the fashion designer, where we see the dress for the inauguration ball. My long-suffering partner and I had quite the debate about whether she was cosplaying as the Epstein Files or Conan the Barbarian so I present the visual argument below.
Who wore it better?
Please, feel free to have your say and tell me which one of us is right.
It’s a hideous outfit, no doubt made under the duress of every person this man has ever loved being shipped off to a black site. It doesn’t look good on her; it’s too long, and this creates some minor obstacles for Melania’s gliding. The designer waxes poetic about the garment’s mystery, which is that you can’t even see where the seams are (remember that for later), implying that she will have to be sewn into it.
Now, I am no fashionista but I feel that there are multiple places where it doesn’t fit properly, and shows quite a lot of sideboob in a way that’s not flattering on her and is personally more of her boobs than I want to see, period. Her back also bulges out over the top despite her not actually having body fat. Design wise, the side of the black ribbon is just loose, which looks like it would keep hitting her arm and restricting movement and looks like a mistake, just like her marriage was. Anyway they shorten the dress in case you were worried.
I’ve changed my mind; the audience for this movie is people who like tracking shots of people walking, and people with Quentin Tarantino levels of foot fetish.
Like the thing about Tarantino is, he’s a problematic person who makes problematic films that are composed around his fetishes and desire to say the N-word as often as possible but they are quite often really excellent films. So you can just kind of gloss over the foot fetish stuff and the N-bombs because the writing really is that good. This is like if you just had the racism and foot fetishes but nothing in the film was funny.
Melania monologues about how much work it is to be First Lady. You have to manage everyone’s schedule and still take care of your family. Other than the photos, so far we’re 20 minutes in and we’ve only seen one family member (he was in a quick shot and not identified, but he’s her father filming with an old timey camcorder).
Melania interviews two women for unspecified positions and hires both of them. They are dressed as extras in a dystopian movie where far-future autocracies try to recreate 1950s Americana. They giggle about how “high energy” they are.
This is not a real job interview. Also we never see these women again so I assume they’re just taken into the basement where their adrenochrome is harvested.
Meanwhile, Melania pretends to flip through papers. A truly gripping cinematic achievement.
This was one of the scenes in the trailer, presumably because it’s one of the few scenes in which two people have a conversation rather than Melania’s ChatGPT voiceover narration. Of course, it’s edited or you wouldn’t be able to hear Trump’s voice clearly, so like all things in this film, you have to consider it as a piece of scripted theatre rather than an event that happened in real life.
Melania calls Trump, he asks her whether she watched it (presumably the electoral college? But it’s not clear), and she says that she was too busy. He talks about how “great” it was. Her manner is less that of a wife congratulating her husband and more of a mother assuring a cranky seven-year-old that of course, his paper mache volcano was deserving of top prize in the science fair, but yes, he still does need to go to bed even though it’s not fair he only got a participation ribbon. It’s funny because he’s the one old enough to be her father.
The celebration is interrupted by the “unexpected” death of Jimmy Carter. I’m not sure how you can call the death of a 100-year-old man in hospice unexpected but anyway, Melania makes it all about herself, as the funeral is happening on the anniversary of her mother’s death. She doesn’t realize how convenient it actually is for her since obviously she gives no shits about Carter but presumably does feel sad about her mom, so she can better fake the crocodile tears.
She greets Trump exactly the same way as the Laotian event planner, with air kisses. There’s clearly no love or chemistry between the two of them, in case you had any doubts. They talk a little about Barron and how “cute” he is and how he has an “incredible mind.”
By the way, does anyone know what’s up with Barron? They don’t let him speak so they clearly think something is wrong with him, but what?
We get more shots of the Trumps walking through hallways, getting in and out of elevators, getting in and out of cars, convoys, more walking, rinse lather repeat. I guess if you find long lineups of black cars interesting to watch, this could be a good movie for you. Melania continues to monologue about grief.
While Melania suffers through the indignity of having to listen to the one Black person in the film with a speaking role, Trump, up well past his bedtime last night, nods off during Carter’s funeral. I don’t generally feel bad for politicians but I feel bad for Obama being downwind from him.
The second Carter’s body is in the ground, Melania books it on the private jet back to New York so that they can empty a cathedral for her, and she lights a candle while this poor priest attempts to exorcise the demons from her. In a better movie, we’d get to see her head spin around or something.
Next time, if you're real good, you get to see a Dracula cape.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:11 am (UTC)That goes in my file of deep-six reviews. Are you drinking like Elijah to recover?
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 02:10 am (UTC)Godspeed your saintlike powers of healing, then.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:18 am (UTC)“ Also we never see these women again so I assume they’re just taken into the basement where their adrenochrome is harvested.”
*dies laughing*
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:26 am (UTC)That said, I'll argue for your sainthood. My parents tried to raise me in the United Church tradition, and I had no interest in any denomination...and I'll still argue for your sainthood if it comes to that.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 02:58 am (UTC)You know how much I love grief media. Movies, books, anything about grief and I’m there. But this will be the first exception to that rule.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 02:58 am (UTC)I was going to vote for Conan, but on second thought he looks like some kind of multicolor abstract art, the person is barely there.
Carter's death wasn't exactly "unexpected," but this is a 100-year-old man who had been in hospice for two years. Of course, if Melania or DJT had a competent staff, they would have planned for the news, the way the BBC has a plan/script for the death of the monarch, and newspapers have pre-written obituaries of prominent people, even the ones who are unlikely to die soon.
The lack of chemistry between Melania and her husband could be part of a more interesting narrative, but that would interfere with what his movie is actually there for.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-06 03:45 am (UTC)This is “let them eat cake” extended to a cinematic run time, only for all the ostentatious wealth on display, not a single person actually consumes food during this movie. There are golden eggs but no one eats them.
Models value thinness so much that eating is fraught. She can't be ostentatiously hospitable by setting an amazingly expensive table, because that would require hospitality. A virtue she would not recognize if it bit her.
One imagines the viewer as a modern-day Robespierre listening with dispassionate interest as Melania is given her moment to speak her piece, before nodding solemnly to the executioner.