{"id":400628,"date":"2026-01-31T13:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/400628\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:11:07","slug":"melania-trump-documentary-opens-to-underwhelming-reception-its-not-a-gripping-film-melania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/400628\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump documentary opens to underwhelming reception: \u2018It\u2019s not a gripping film\u2019 | Melania"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of her new documentary, Melania Trump<\/a> tells the viewer that \u201ceverybody wants to know\u201d how she spends her time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo here it is,\u201d she says. \u201cTwenty days in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a snappy introductory line, but, unfortunately for the first lady, it appears to be wrong. All available evidence suggests that, actually, very few people want to know about Melania Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At one of New York\u2019s busiest movie theaters on Friday, the day of Melania\u2019s release, the crowd was sparse, and the poor turnout for Melania Trump\u2019s vanity project, commissioned by Amazon founder and Donald Trump-friend Jeff Bezos<\/a>, was reflected across the country, with executives forced to downplay predictions for the movie\u2019s opening weekend.<\/p>\n

Precisely 12 people had shown up to watch Melania<\/a> at an AMC theater near Times Square, at least half of whom were journalists reviewing the movie. Only a handful of people were watching Melania for non-work reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s really interesting to see, like, inside the life of somebody so famous. She\u2019s a private person. So I think it\u2019s interesting just to kind of see, you know, how her life really is, at least to some extent,\u201d was the analysis of a viewer called Chase, one of the few non-reporters watching the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was very good. She really portrayed things that I think the public didn\u2019t know prior about her. I found it really interesting,\u201d the 24-year-old added. He said he classified himself as politically independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have come to watch if it was Jill Biden, whoever. I think it\u2019s just interesting to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the days ahead of its release, it seemed few people agreed. People shared screenshots<\/a> from ticketing websites which showed vacant movie theaters in cities including Boston and Charleston<\/a>. It is likely to lead to quite a loss for Amazon, which paid $40m<\/a> for the documentary and spent an additional $35m to market it \u2013 although presumably being in the president\u2019s good graces is priceless for Bezos.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, money alone cannot make Melania Trump interesting. She is an uneasy onscreen presence, someone so clearly uncomfortable in front of the camera that it makes one wonder why she would put herself through this. With its subject lacking charisma, much of the film is devoted to Melania Trump trying on clothes, although other highlights include footage of people playing croquet at Mar-a-Lago, in the manner of a retirement community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t dislike it as much as I thought I would,\u201d said Jim Behrle, a Democrat who said he had gone to see the film because he \u201cthought it might be funny\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was some interesting stuff in it. There were some interesting characters, and some of the footage is shot really well,\u201d Behrle, 52, added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of rising action in the film at all. I mean, there\u2019s not a lot of conflict or anything like that, but seeing some of the behind-the-scenes stuff is pretty interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behrle said he watched Melania in part because he has a monthly pass to the theater which allows him to watch as many movies as he likes for $29. Despite being surprised by how little he disliked the movie, he is unlikely to recommend it to friends and family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a gripping film,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the beginning of her new documentary, Melania Trump tells the viewer that \u201ceverybody wants to know\u201d how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-400628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}