Melania reviews say more about the state of media than the film

Melania has been a huge box office success for a documentary of its kind and will likely have long legs in streaming. It’s done about $10 million so far and over $7 million of that was its opening weekend. It will comfortably sit as the number documentary of 2026 and it outperformed every documentary of 2025 (excluding concert films). 

The most bitter group of people in America, the Hollywood media elite, are seething that Melania did well. They have taken to the internet to ensure it gets the worst possible reviews. The movie is sitting at 1.1 on IMDB as the lowest ever rated movie. This is in a world where movies like 2019’s Cats already exist. 

Melania also has the largest disparity between critical and audience review on Rotten Tomatoes of all time. And unlike IMDB, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes has “verified audience” meaning reviewers Rotten Tomatoes can determine exist and saw the movie. Rotten Tomatoes even confirmed that there had been no tampering or suspicious activity on the verified audience score.

The critics mainly say that the documentary is bad because Melania is apart of a “dangerous” administration dissolving democracy. As if in a totalitarian state or anything close they’d be allowed to bomb bad reviews of the First Lady’s movie. They criticize it for being mainly PR and not having much substance. 

But the thing is that Melania Trump herself is very enigmatic and has said very little up until this documentary. While the documentary doesn’t have anything earth shattering it does answer the question: How does Melania Trump wish to be perceived? This is a worthy question we didn’t previously have an answer to. The documentary clearly defined Melania’s goals of public perception which are: fashionable, perfectionist, accomplished, smart, faithful, good daughter, and well liked boss. 

There is a scene in the documentary where a woman who was recently rescued from Hamas had secured a meeting with Melania to appeal for her husband to be rescued. This occurred after the election and prior to President Trump taking the oath of office. This sequence has stayed on this critics heart ever since. The woman said something to the effect of “My husband has always been there for me 100% And now I’m not there for him” referencing that she had been rescued and he had not been rescued (Hamas had released women and children only). The woman broke down in tears at this statement, as did I. It was an extremely human moment that happened in real time captured by cameras. Her husband was saved by the Trump administration 12 days after President Trump took office. 

So with that scene alone, setting aside the fashion story and the segment about her faith and the segment expressing her fear for her family’s life in the inaugural parade, has meaning and is worthy content. 

Even if the movie was only PR there have been many like it before Melania. Disney+ produced and released, Fauci which was nothing but a fluff piece about how great he is and completely glossed over his role not only in the AIDS pandemic but the COVID-19 outbreak. In that case, critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 86%. Audiences gave Fauci a 2%. It also received a Fail Award from the Conservative Critic. Here is my review of Fauci.

So it’s very clear the only reason Melania was given such bad reviews is because the leftist media hates Donald Trump and is so bitter that they cannot be impartial. Their reviews say a lot more about their professionalism (0%) than about the quality of the documentary which render them entirely obsolete. Had they had any integrity at all they might have at least been able to discuss the interview with the Hamas survivor and weigh it against the rose coloring PR angle of some of the segments. They might have mentioned two other world leaders, Brigitte Macron and Queen Rania were both featured in the film and weighed that against some of the lengthy music only shots. They might have given it a modest review, even on the low side, that had some credibility at all. But they weren’t even able to do that. 

It’s not Melania that is pathetic. It’s the leftist media and their mean girl bitter attitudes.