Melania Trump Documentary Premieres to Harsh Critical Reception and Financial Questions
The highly anticipated documentary focusing on former First Lady Melania Trump has finally arrived in theaters after more than a year of speculation. Titled simply "Melania," the film follows her during the twenty-day period leading up to Donald Trump's second inauguration following the 2024 presidential election. However, its theatrical debut has been met with overwhelmingly negative reviews from professional critics, who have labeled it everything from propaganda to cinematic torture, while its substantial $75 million budget raises questions about its origins and potential box office performance.
Critical Consensus: A Scathing Assessment
As of Saturday afternoon, the documentary has achieved an abysmal 6% score on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. This places it lower than notoriously panned films like the 2019 adaptation of "Cats" or the third "Fifty Shades of Grey" movie. The critical response has been uniformly brutal in its assessment of the film's artistic and narrative merits.
Variety's Owen Gleiberman described it as "a documentary that never comes to life," criticizing its overly orchestrated and airbrushed portrayal that he argues barely rises above the level of a shameless infomercial. Kevin Fallon of The Daily Beast went further, calling it "a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review."
Perhaps the most vivid condemnation came from The Guardian's Xan Brooks, who wrote that "two hours of Melania feels like pure, endless hell." Brooks drew a controversial comparison, suggesting the documentary plays like "a gilded trash remake" of the Holocaust drama "The Zone of Interest," while accusing it of presenting "a button-eyed Cinderella" who distracts viewers with luxury items as "her husband and his cronies prepare to dismantle the Constitution."
Controversial Origins and Financial Speculation
The documentary's background has attracted nearly as much attention as its content. Last year, Amazon MGM Studios announced it had paid $40 million to Melania Trump's production company to license the film—a transaction some observers have suggested represents a political payoff to curry favor with the Trump family.
This financial arrangement appears particularly noteworthy given Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's previous criticism of Donald Trump. In 2016, Bezos accused Trump of "threatening retribution" against opponents and "eroding" American democracy, yet following the 2024 election, Bezos praised Trump and Amazon donated $1 million to his inaugural fund.
The film's total $75 million cost has prompted speculation that it could rank among the most expensive documentaries ever released theatrically. The Critic's Robert Hutton addressed these financial and political dimensions directly, writing that "this film all came together because even the richest have things to fear from the subject's husband." He suggested the documentary's significance lies less in its content and more in "the fact that it happened," potentially serving as "evidence in an impeachment trial" and representing "an important document in the decline of American public life."
A Stark Divide Between Critics and Audiences
While professional critics have universally panned the documentary, audience reactions present a dramatically different picture. Fan-submitted reviews on Rotten Tomatoes showed a 98% approval rating on Saturday afternoon, with comments praising Melania Trump as "a wonderful human" and describing the film as "classical art" that "doesn't try to perform or persuade."
This extreme divergence has led skeptics on social media to question the authenticity of the positive fan reviews, suggesting they might be artificially inflated. Meanwhile, box office analysts remain divided on the film's commercial prospects. The Hollywood Reporter has predicted a surprising $8 million opening weekend, while an analysis by WIRED reported that "Melania" sold out only two showings nationwide on its opening Friday.
Premiere Reactions and Director Controversy
At Thursday's world premiere in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump himself praised the documentary as "a very important movie." When questioned by a New York Times reporter about allegations that Bezos was purchasing goodwill through the film's financing, Trump dismissed the claims as "fake news."
Adding another layer of controversy to the production, the documentary was directed by Brett Ratner, who faced allegations in 2017 from at least six women accusing him of sexual harassment and misconduct. His involvement has drawn additional scrutiny to a film already mired in political and critical controversy.
As "Melania" continues its theatrical run, it remains a cultural flashpoint—simultaneously a documentary, a political statement, and a test case for how audience reactions can diverge so dramatically from critical consensus in an increasingly polarized media landscape.
