If it isn’t, what is it? Surely not a narrative of a woman showing how bright she is, but how brightly her surroundings can be polished

When asked by the media to describe her new documentary Melania in three words, the first lady hesitated briefly and then said, “I think the people will judge for themselves.” Eight words uttered like a queen referring to her subjects. No doubt a very specific brand of public persona: polished, somewhat enigmatic, and very carefully guarded. And then she added, describing “the feeling of the film”: “It’s beautiful, emotional, fashionable, and cinematic.” But is it a beautiful story? That will depend on what your expectations are. You must have read the reviews of the film. They were brutal, yet not quite. No one wanted to go overboard with Donald Trump’s wife. We wanted to see if what was levelled at her and her little film was fair. As Melania finally appeared four days ago on Amazon’s Prime Video, we thought we’d satisfy our professional curiosity. FLOTUS wanted people to judge for themselves. So we shall, even if, watching her, we risk being profiled as an American septuagenarian patriot who never misses a primary or a potluck.

Although she says at the start that “with this film, I want to show the American people my journey, the transition from a private citizen to the first lady”, that first part does not happen. We did not see Melania Knauss, we went straight to Melania Trump. In fact, at the start of the documentary, we were not even introduced to a person or half a person, but a pair of stilettos. The heels make the woman, you see, but the gravity, in her case, never humbles her, or her feet. Throughout the film. even when you do not see the heels, you hear them. As she begins her narration some six minutes into the action, we learned another thing: she pronounces ‘film’ as “fee-lem”, probably due to the phonology of her Slovenian background, but she could pass off as someone talking in a SS15 Subang Jaya kedai kopi about a filem she just watched. Except that the deliberate pacing of her speech pointed to a commanding presence, even monarchical, as she spoke rather royally of wanting to reach out to “the American people”. They are the backdrop of what she called in the publicity interviews for her film, a “creative experience”.

Mrs Trump had informed the press: “You will see grief. You will see humour. You will see fashion.” So let’s see the fashion. In fact, that’s our first encounter even when she affirms that “everyday I live with purpose and devotion, orchestrating the complexities of my life while nurturing my family’s needs.” Forget about the latter. The film begins with her leaving Mar-a-Lago in Florida to return to Trump Tower in New York. The next morning, she went straight to the fashion—the “inaugural coat”, to be exact, and determined that a navy fabric she had picked was “much lighter” than the black that was sampled for her. Even at home (a graven of gold garishness), she was dressed in a suit, as if she was attending a high-level meeting at Muse Films. We were able to see her French-born designer Hervé Pierre (a surprisingly small and round individual, looking like a chef who just cooked for entire Trump household than a designer to FLOTUS, who calls him “Her-vay”). He does not seem to be the one who has any sway over her. Rather, it is Adam Lippes, another designer, who appears to have her ear and is able to make suggestions. Perhaps because the coat is designed by Mr Lippes. Mrs Trump is portrayed to know what she wants because, as Mr Pierre notes with glee, “she was a model” and, therefore, “it’s fantastic because we speak the same language.” When she leaves to go try the coat on, Mr Pierre follows her, holding up the garments, as if he is the butler.

“My mother Amalija’s fashion talent and expertise,” Mrs Trump happily tells us, “cultivated my deep appreciation for great design.” Choosing a coat of such aggressive generic sway does require a preface of tutored connoisseurship, including recognising navy blue and making a fuss of it. Although she did not say it, her mother was a textile worker in a children’s garment factory back in Slovenia. Her father Viktor called his wife a “fashion designer”; he was still in awe. “From her wisdom,” the beloved daughter continued, “I grew to honour the craft, treasure the artistry, and respect the level of perfection it require (sic) to create timeless pieces.” What was she really selling other than a mother-daughter relationship? Or did she allow her scriptwriters to let a bot write that passage after he was prompted with nothing but 1990s luxury brochures? Her entire discourse during the fitting was as enlightening as someone opening a can of Spam. It is really disconcerting to us as the triteness stood in sharp contrast to the gleaming gold in which she indulges her “creative experience”. The ‘fee-lem’ is a marathon of the marginal and what remained, after she is happy with the inaugural coat, is really a relentless trek through the lobby of the insignificant.

Last month, Melania Trump donated the gown worn at the inaugural ball to the National Museum of American History. Or, according to Mr Pierre, “immortalised”. Like the coat that was eventually made in the navy fabric that she had selected prior, the black and white column was spotlighted. Mr Pierre was seen making a sketch of the dress and then, predictably, sketch turns into the real deal and Mrs Trump appears, walking down a spiral staircase in that white dress with a black zig-zag slashing the bodice, as if visually striking her out. She describes it as “shiu, shiu, shiu” (not swish!), using her left hand to mimic slashing, as if mimicking Zoro. This is a knowledgeable fashion figure expressing the “creative experience”. She continues to approve of the result: “Very my colours—black and white… Very me.” It is rather odd that a woman who loves no chromatic aberration should be so at ease amid that interior of bullion aggression. Was she suggesting that she was indeed constrained by what has been described as a “guilded cage”? The designer is very proud of his achievement, enlightening: “What is fascinating about this dress—you don’t see any seam at all. There is no seam at the waist; there is no dart. Everything… is completely under the band.” Just in case you thought he might have used a glue gun.

It is hard to sit through a documentary that offers no real insight, whether emotionally or intellectually. We only depended on our empeng chips for the crunch that the plot lacks. If we keep to the fashion angle, we did learn that high-heeled court shoes are so vital to her existence that she wears them even at home, even while watching TV, still in pantsuits (we don’t get to see her slip into something comfortable). We could not tell if she was inhabitant or permanent exhibition. So too sunglasses, often perched on her nose in lifts, even in the corridor of her own penthouse in Trump Tower, and most definitely in her assigned car with those expectedly darkened windows, and especially when she sings and jives to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. We also became aware that she has a garment bag marked FLOTUS to house her clothes when she travels on the Trump-branded private jet, which is often. We also discovered that, like her husband, she is predisposed to come up with marvelous words, such as when she described her partner-in-crime, the handily wide-brimmed hat that paired with the coat, as “wiggly-waggly”, quite the baby talk to a designer who cut his teeth at Balmain and later at Oscar de la Renta.

According to her, her parents’ affection for each other “over 60 years… taught [her] what lasting love looks like”. She was so certain that her mother must be mentioned in her expensive film that it was the main story over what is her attending the funeral of Jimmy Carter. In fact, she made no mention of her affection for the late former president or if she even knew her, or met him. That her mother died exactly a year ago was a convenient coincidence that allowed her scriptwriters to slip in a salute of Amalija Knauss, once also a White House resident and a flaunt of the pilgrim-collared funereal get-up she picked for the appearance. There was even a long shot of Mrs Trump visiting the St Patrick cathedral in New York when she was back in the city that very evening to “honour” her mother, a scene lengthier that the Jimmy Carter funeral. She narrates that the woman she remembers is “the richest thread in my life”. To call your mother a mere thread, rather than a yarn, a fabric, or even a tapestry, reduces the metaphor to something insubstantial, yet the deceased was worthy of a dedicated visit to the cathedral, purposely cleared out for her by her security team and where she was ceremoniously welcomed by the priests, as if for Christmas mass. She may have pitched it as remembrance. We saw only the mise-en-scène.

Although the old lady had co-shown her daughter what “love looks like”, Mrs Trump did not quite express that love or showed palpable affection for her husband throughout the film, which tries to frame those 20 days before the inauguration as a portrait of intimacy, but what it actually reveals is the absence. What struck us was a profound lack of tenderness. She held his hand on occasions, but more for balance and physical support than affection, than genuinely wanting to touch him. She does not kiss him and the three times during the inauguration when he tried to kiss her, he did not quite succeed. There is, of course, the awkward and unwieldy hat. Mrs Trump never once explain why it was needed, and especially indoors. An object that blocks and distracts raises questions the film never answers. But under the one and only broad brim of the session, she could see her husband utter: “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and a unifier.” If there is one thing she must absolutely show to take credit for, it was that. It was Melania Trump who predicted what her husband will not be. Nudging him to say those two words was setting him up to lie. The moment read less like legacy and more like theatre: The first lady prefaced what her husband’s tenure would be like—delivered for optics, not conviction.

Screen shots and film stills: Amazon