It’s unprecedented for a sitting first lady to sell a self-produced documentary for millions of dollars while still in office. The trailer is finally out. See how she struts

The First Lady of the United States posing for the promotion of her biographical documentary Melania. Photo: melaniatrump.com

It’s really about heels. Very high heels. Vertiginous, as footwear specialists would call them. The trailer for the U.S. first lady’s documentary Melania was just released, and one of the most striking images from that is a close-up shot of her alighting a vehicle and stepping on what seems to be the tarmac in a heeled ankle boot. Yes, just one side—right, traditionally, a symbol of strength and fortune. The provenance of boot is unclear, but it is unmistakably sheath-like footwear with very sharp, filiform heel, which we estimate to be a about 4 inches (or 100 milimetres). We know Melania Trump loves boots. She’s worn knee-highs, she’s embraced combat styles, she’s even strutted in Timberlands. So it is unsurprising that she would make the boots a signature look, a piece of footwear that is framed to look incongruent against the side panel (or running board) of the vehicle and the tarmac, a surface many of us have no privilege to be on.

Just six hours or so after the trailer was broadcast, keen-eyed archivists of X spotted a similarity of that frame with another in The Devil Wears Prada, a film from nearly 30 years ago, when Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) appeared for the first time and you see her vaguely ’40s red pumps with rather blockish heels that has been generally credited to Azzedine Alaïa. That shot was over before you could say ‘shoe’. Mrs Trump’s single boot allowed the camera to linger long enough for you to notice that it has a belt, but no buckle, like a karate obi. The frame is surprisingly ill lit—dark, as if this was Gotham City and a new sinister character is being introduced, one with a deadly heel and a toe box so pointed it looks ready for any deserving shin. While one was a middle-aged editrix’s footwear choice to express fashion savvy, the other simply showed that the stakes were high, but both were in lock-step when presenting the image of the aloof, glamorous, and untouchable.

The heels she stepped out of a vehicle in. Sceen shot: amazonmgmstudios/Instagram

The cameras naturally gravitate toward the profile; it’s the only way to capture the architectural defiance and engineering buffer of her heels—stilts that would leave the mortals around her crippled. In the publicity material for Melania, she opted for a seated profile. It’s the most efficient way to document the geometry of her silhouette and the sheer audacity of those heels in one frame. The angle offers an unobstructed view of her footwear: the needle-thin proof that gravity is merely an option she chooses to ignore. This time, she is shod in a pair of what seems like Christian Louboutins’ So Kate stilettos, possibly the 120mm version. She is cross-legged, suggesting composure and control, while those heels, clearly positioned to communicate their power, are a visual assertion of dominance. She wear a black suit in a seat that hints at a director’s chair, but more likely as a mogul of the production company she founded, Muse Films. It’s a beautifully calculated shift from the supportive White House wife to the brand head honcho.

Melania isn’t just a documentary about her; it’s a documentary by her. The documentary is executive-produced by her through a company she launched last month, Muse Films. The name is reportedly taken from the code name that the secret service tasked with protecting her assigned back during her husband’s first. It was chosen because she was formerly a model, although no brand called her a muse. Melania is Muse Film’s first production, which dramatises her and the 20 days that led up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration. The company name is clearly self-mythologising. She positions herself as someone to be admired, studied, and remembered. The word ‘muse’ evokes classical majesty, artistic reverence, and untouchable distance—like a marble statue that knows exactly how much it’s worth. A muse is often silent, objectified, and misunderstood. By reclaiming the term, Melania does an about-face in towering heels: She’s not just the subject of art, she’s the producer of her own myth.

Melania Trump, White House revisited. Screen shot: amazonmgmstudios/Instagram

The film needed a distributor. In came Amazon MGM Studios. They secured the global rights for a an assertive USD40 million—a figure that serves as both a high-stakes commercial wager and a loud declaration of the project’s prestige. The deal shows how spectacle translates into market value. Amazon isn’t just buying a docu-film; it’s buying access to a cultural flashpoint, the woman who wants to tell all about the days that led her to the White House the second time, but is now widely known to not be there, operating as the first lady, remotely. The sale price was simply the first act of the drama; a $40 million opening move that ensured the world was watching before the cameras even rolled. The multi-million figure functions like the boot or, definitely, the heel: a symbol of grandeur, excess, and untouchability. And the sharpest incongruity does not require a lens: USD40 million for a self-authored spectacle, while millions of Americans are currently face food insecurity.

And there is the choice of the director for her first project: Brett Ratner (Rush Hour and X-Men). This pick quickly undermines the film’s attempt at prestige. Mr Ratner enjoys a legacy defined less by his work and more by a persistent habit of violating boundaries, notably the carnal kind. This has led Warner Bros. to cut ties with him in 2017. He’s been largely absent from Hollywood since then. This documentary marks his inevitable, mostly unwelcome, crawl back into the spotlight, tethered to a script that is already doing the exhausting work of being polarising. Melania allows us, as the trailer insists, to “witness history in the making”. It establishes itself as dignified cultural artifact, but Mr Ratner’s involvement effectively topples the altar. Just as her boot insists on height while hiding the unseemly street-level reality, his presence insists on prestige while dragging mud across the scrubbed-for-FLOTUS tarmac. As any high heel wearer will say, muck does cling to stilettos.