Reel Entropy

The only sequence in Melania that threatens to expand into a watchable narrative with conflict and stakes appears suddenly through the morass of extended scenes of nothing happening. Former president Jimmy Carter has died, and Melania Trump, credited as star and producer in a documentary named after herself, faces a personal crisis. His funeral, which Trump must upend her schedule to attend, falls on a painful anniversary for her, and she must publicly grieve for this stranger while privately facing her own demons.

The film is referring, of course, to Jan. 9, the anniversary of her mother’s death. What? Did anything else happen in early January in recent history that might be an uncomfortable memory for Trump?

Melania is an expansion on Trump’s October 2024 memoir, also titled “Melania,” which was, reportedly, in line with how the First Lady is often perceived – self-sheltering and selectively empathetic to the extreme that she can guiltlessly coexist with her husband. Caught between the apparent desperation for usable footage and the multiple pairs of blinders the film must keep strapped to its face, Melania raises itself to the level of a new form of cinema – the cinema of omission.