Considering the fact that Melania is nothing more than a sickening and slick propaganda piece, it would seem inappropriate to review it in a standard way. You cannot watch Melania, if you watch it at all, and not be aware of how much it is just yet another shiny trinket in the overstuffed temple that is the "cult of personality" that has been used by the Trump family to grab power, make themselves richer, and offer up their uneducated and ignorant opinions on platforms that amplify and empower them.
In a world where truth is an increasingly flexible thing, when it really shouldn't be, here are some absolute truths about Melania.
It's a vanity project. Focused on Melania, but also allowing her husband to have a moment or two where he tries (and fails) to come across as a normal human being, all while director Brett Ratner sycophantically bends the knee and shows how much he knows what side his bread is buttered on.
Because, lest we forget, Brett Ratner went very quiet for years, mainly due to a number of women who accused him of sexual assault during the height of the #METOO movement. Separating from Warner Bros., it looked as if Ratner's career might have been all over, but accusations of sexual assault are water off a duck's back when someone is able to become POTUS for a second time after being found guilty of sexual abuse by a jury having to veer just enough away from the word "rape". In fact, a statement from Judge Kaplan did actually affirm that Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll, which makes it seemingly inevitable that Ratner would now find favour in a festering and toxic White House.
There's a lack of self-awareness here that would be laughable if it wasn't so sickeningly contributing to an infection that is turning our entire planet into a broken and bleeding shell that may bear the scars for decades to come. Melania claims that her husband has gone through more than anyone else in history (you'd think he was Joan Of Arc by the way she talks about him). She also takes the opportunity to remind everyone that she loves her family, in a really standard way that doesn't feel alien and robotic at all (honest). She is desperate to save the children, and happily serve the people of America. And did I mention that she thinks her husband is a great man? Because he's apparently a great man. The greatest.
This is a horror movie, for the most part, and I cannot recommend it to anyone who is outwith the horrific cult of personality that we've seen developed over the past decade or so. All Trump has done since getting the throne he so clearly coveted for many years is fail. His crowds are never as big as he wants them to be, his negotiating "skills" show why he couldn't even make a success out of a casino empire (seriously, it's quite a feat to do that), and his narcissism, xenophobia, and misogyny are impossible to deny, yet we have to watch an entire "documentary" in which Melania acknowledges no imperfections, big or small, in either herself or any part of her family.
Considering how much money Amazon paid for this, and how they are now platforming it, I would implore all of you to once again think about how you use the site. I am currently figuring out how to be a bit more ethical in where my money goes, and made sure to watch this via a portal that would not give Amazon the click or traffic it would use as any metric of viewer numbers, and I encourage you all to do the same. It may now be impossible to extricate ourselves from such an online behemoth, but it's clearly now a moral imperative to work against anyone who considers this a worthwhile investment.
1/10
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