Politics can come in many different forms, with the most recent being a documentary. Melania was released in theatres on Jan. 30, 2026. This film was released to have a purpose of showcasing “20 days in the life” while Melania Trump is becoming the First Lady during President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration. Melania, who acted as an executive producer for the film, wanted to showcase things in her personal life, like fashion, business, family, etc. The documentary has had multiple contradicting reviews with 11% ratings from critics, versus 98% audience approval. This created the largest ever disparity in Rotten Tomatoes’ history.
I will be giving my own review and opinion on this documentary, focusing on my view as an audience member with no prior knowledge to the documentary. With the varying reviews, I give a rating of a two-star documentary, and here’s why.
The production of this documentary is unlike any other I have ever seen. Instead of separate interviewing scenes with people in her life, it consists of recorded clips of her life with random 30-secon-ish voice-overs of her explaining the significance of the scene. The voiceover clips were too short to give any retainable information. This made the documentary feel a lot less informative, as it was mostly watching videos with no direction. There were no deeply personal statements made by her, with all of them sounding very scripted. It begins with upbeat music playing over clips of Trump’s Palm Beach home in Florida, along with her being escorted into her cab to go to the airport. This introduction was dragged a lot longer than it should have been, making the film already seem less intriguing.
The first aspect of the documentary I am going to focus on is her passion for fashion. Trump used to be a model, so one of her big ideas for her production was to show her love for design. There are four clips where this is displayed as she tries on clothes made by her design team, and criticizes them with the adjustment she wants made. She would focus mainly on small details like making the collar of her blouse sharper or making the shape of her hat less round. I think that the idea of showcasing her love for fashion was presented with a basic ground demonstration, but not displaying what her actual role is. The film does not explain if the clothing pieces are her personal work, and instead is displayed more as her trying things on that were made for her.
Another aspect of the First Lady’s film that she wanted to include was how she works as First Lady through grief. After the death of President Carter, Melania talks about the importance her mother had to her, and how the funeral was the one-year anniversary of her mother’s passing. The way she presented this was confusing, trying to figure out the importance of President Carter’s death compared to her mother’s. She didn’t often say who she was referring to in the film. Trying to decipher between the importance of each was difficult to follow. I think that this aspect of the film was informal and seemed out of place for her film.
The last big takeaway of this film is what the First Lady is doing now to make an impact on the world. In the film, there are a few scenes where M. Trump mentions the importance of children being able to get an education. She has a few meetings, one being with the First Lady of France, specifically about the lives of children in and out of schools. I think that this was the most impactful part of her documentary, if there was anything at all to take away, because it actually demonstrates what she is doing to help.
Lastly, I am going to dive into the controversy of Melania and why the reviews are so varied. The film was originally heavily promoted in pro-Trump communities to expand the film’s audience. President Trump also advertised it as a “Must Watch” to his fans. After the first weekend of release, it was most popular in Colorado, Florida, and Texas, which broke the top ten-box office earners for the film, according to Deadline. This brought a good start to the documentary’s success. The cost for the documentary was $40 million dollars, along with an additional $35 million expense. Though the film made $7 million after the opening weekend, which was $2 million over what they expected, it is still immensely lower compared to what they paid for the film. According to New York Magazine, the second weekend being released had a “huge drop off” in popularity and ticket sales.
There were multiple 1-star critic reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, with statements like, “it was a soulless MAGA lullaby that will eventually put viewers to sleep” from Intelligencer, and “Melania is an astonishingly dull documentary that masquerades as a glamorous immigrant story” from Joseph Robinson. I agree with the critical reviews considering my overall opinion that, instead of Melania being informational and following a storyline, it is out of order, and provides very little knowledge to retain. But compared to audience reviews people said things like, “This documentary is informative and interesting” from Robetta, and “What a refreshing view of how things get done behind the scenes” from Cheyene. These controversial reviews are one of the reasons why there is confusion about the film.
Theater ticket counts have significantly dropped as of Feb. 23, and have continued to decrease since then. This documentary did not have the success that was expected by the producer, and there is still curiosity remaining on if they will reach their success goals. This film was unorganized and glamourized instead of being realistic to the First Lady’s real life.
