Slate "Unfortunately I Have to Recommend You See Melania"

[NewHendoLib]

https://slate.com/culture/2026/01/melania-trump-movie-review-documentary-tickets.html

Melania Trump’s relative scarcity from her husband’s second term has not gone unnoticed. The first lady had an implicit excuse for her absence though: She’s been busy working on other things, like the documentary she was making, for which Amazon paid her (an insane) $40 million. She couldn’t possibly be expected to serve as first lady in the traditional sense, because she was dedicating all her time to playing the first lady in a movie, a movie that tells the story of a first lady who is bravely making a movie about herself. After a lavish, controversial premiere at the institution formerly known as the Kennedy Center Thursday night, the film, surely the culmination of backbreaking labor, is opening in theaters around the world Friday.

I went to the first available screening Friday morning, and after noticing when I bought my ticket that all the people who purchased one before me were also going alone, I was not surprised to see that nearly everyone else in the theater with me was a fellow journalist. We may not have had any Melania fan–on-the-street interviews, but at least we had esprit de corps, and people to snicker with. Did my fellow members of the fourth estate feel as embarrassed as I did walking in, knowing the theater employees might assume that we were there as fans? I for one did not anticipate how much the act of showing my ticket would feel like wearing a MAGA hat.

Snip

But Melania is worth seeing despite, or maybe because of, how bad it is. Its story, to the extent there is one, is to follow the first lady through the 20 days leading up to last year’s inauguration. (Once again I ask: If she finished filming in January, where was she for the rest of the year? Apparently she has plans for further projects with director Brett Ratner.) My only real hesitation at calling it a propaganda film is that it’s arguably something worse than that. A proper propaganda film would be selling something, even if that something is mostly a cult of personality. For better or worse, mostly worse, the modern culture consumer is used to pleasant enough docu-propaganda from sports and pop stars like David Beckham and Beyoncé. You know the sort of hagiography you’re going to get with those. This is something else; this is thoroughly incompetent hagiography.

Snip

Melania has told us so many times that she doesn’t care about anything. She is fine with putting in the kind of half-assed effort that will result in slogans like “Be Best” and she’s willing to put up with a husband like Donald Trump. I don’t know how it still manages to be shocking, but it does. I’ll give her this: I’m not sure anyone else could have made a movie that taught me so remarkably little about its main subject. Meh-lania.

[struggle4progress]

1. "My boss told me that I should say something good when the movie was over

so I said Good! The movie is over!!"

[Lovie777]

2. Hell no.................

[Faux pas]

3. Why would any

critical thinking skills want to contribute ANYTHING to her or beso's THIEVING lifestyle FFS??????????????????????????

[Raven123]

4. So the author is saying we should see a movie that tells us what we already know. Got it

No thanks.

[NewHendoLib]

8. It's sarcasm! The review is scathing.

[senseandsensibility]

5. Stupid but typical attempt at a "hot take"

that I guess his fellow beltway journalists will appreciate.

[NewHendoLib]

7. Did you read it all? The title is sarcasm - the review spot on

[senseandsensibility]

10. I read all of the part you posted

And I agreed with it, as much as I can without actually seeing the film which I have no intention of doing.
It was well written and scathing and I'm all for that. How the author got from that to recommending people see it must be in the linked part. Maybe he made the connection. I still think he is using that recommendation as some kind of hook or way of getting people to pay attention, which is fine I suppose.

[NewHendoLib]

11. It was sarcasm! Do you not do sarcasm?

I think it was a brilliant tactic

[senseandsensibility]

12. No I do not do sarcasm

Never heard of it. What is this sarcasm of which you speak? Actually, if I did not "do" sarcasm I could not have stayed married for more than forty years to my darling hubby who does almost nothing but. I guess you are saying that recommending the movie when the rest of the review is negative is sarcasm. It probably is. I don't find it a great example of it, but I know that this matter is subjective. No one is right or wrong, and I hope you're not taking offense.

[3catwoman3]

6. "Meh-lania" - Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!

Perfect -

[malaise]

9. Rec for

Meh!😀

[MTGUY1311]

13. Please! Make it stop!

Watching 'Melania' is like when a big, smelly thug beats you up in an alley... it sure feels good when he quits.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

16. Welcome to DU

[Wednesdays]

14. Well, I might see it.

When it's a totally obscure flick being mocked in Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Emphasis on the word might.

[Sogo]

15. They had to think long and hard what to name the movie, cause Andy Warhol had already used "Trash."