The documentary about Melania Trump, Melania, is finally in theaters after an early showing at the White House last week and a Kennedy Center premiere on Thursday night.
The film was not screened for critics in advance, meaning that any reviews that have appeared likely came from critics who have purchased a ticket and reviewed the film right away. Some of those reviews have appeared, and they’re not positive.
Writing in the British newspaper The Independent, critic Nick Hilton reviewed director Brett Ratner’s film, denouncing the First Lady herself as “a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda.”
While writing that Melania has led “an undeniably fascinating life,” going from Europe to the White House, in “an aspirational story of a little girl with nothing but a perfect jawline, the sort of tale that draws the eye of Hollywood,” Hilton notes that there’s little hit of that from the documentary itself.
Melania review – First Lady is a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda https://t.co/6aoh8KxOUv #AmazonTrumpBribe
— The Proud Blue Texan 🇺🇸🏳️🌈🇺🇦 (@ProgressiveTex) January 30, 2026
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“Of course, this is all information I have extracted from Melania Trump’s Wikipedia page, because it is strikingly absent from the new Amazon documentary, Melania, which has just received a mysterious theatrical release.”
At one point, Melania states that “not a day goes by when I don’t think about my mother,” the camera shows not the First Lady’s mother but rather former President Jimmy Carter, whose funeral was held during the time the Melania documentary was being filmed.
“To call Melania vapid would do a disservice to the plumes of florid vape smoke that linger around British teenagers,” the British critic writes. “She calls herself a ‘mother, wife, daughter, friend,’ yet is only depicted preening and scowling.”
“Melania” is an utterly fascinating film about a woman slowly walking into and out of rooms
— Daniel D’Addario (@DPD_) January 30, 2026
Another review, and the first to appear on Rotten Tomatoes, comes from the Substack Screen Space, and critic Simon Foster, and it’s not much more positive.
“So, what’s the point?,” Foster writes. “How does this superficial, willfully deceitful reality readjustment serve the sociopathic ascension of Trump’s will (because everything has to)? Watching Melania get fitted for expensive clothes in gaudy rooms, or talk up how extravagantly staged she demands her balls be – and both happen a lot in Brett Ratner’s unrelentingly boring feature doc debut – only strengthen perceptions of her as a chilly, lifeless socialite wannabe.”
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
