When you watch Melania and her Manolos on the big screen, you will likely feel poor, ugly, and, if you’re also six months pregnant, a little fat. But unlike her husband, who perfected his persona as the everyman’s perception of a rich man into populism, Melania Trump is not accessible. She does not try to be. She does not kick off her stilettos to pretend she loves to live in a palatial kitchen, a la Meghan Markle, nor does she brandish a Princeton degree or freelance as a professor like her predecessors as first lady.
Melania, the documentary, is about the wife of the former and future president, who understands that her sole job is to be the wife of the former and future president, and she does it very well. It is a time capsule of one of the most unique moments of a unique woman’s life — Donald Trump’s reelection marked the second time in American history that a president won a second non-consecutive presidential term, and Melania Trump is the first naturalized American citizen to become first lady of the United States — but it is also an almost academic analysis of one of the highest profile and oddly thankless jobs in history.
