Everyone Is Missing the Point About the 'Melania' Movie

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Melania Trump at the screening of “Melania” at the Kennedy Center last week. Doug Mills/The New York Times

critic’s notebook

Everyone Is Missing the Point About the ‘Melania’ Movie

It’s not really a movie at all. It’s a marketing deck.

By Vanessa Friedman
Feb. 3, 2026

Since “Melania,” the film about the 20 days leading to Melania Trump’s second term as first lady, had its premiere at the Kennedy Center, it has been alternately criticized and mocked, reviews and memes exploding in both old and new media. ... The film has been called “an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy” (The Guardian), “propaganda” (The Daily Beast) and a “mockumentary” (Vanity Fair). Its box office take has been analyzed and debated as reports of its record-setting opening and screenshots of empty movie theaters spread. Yet, amid all the hoo-ha, a critical point has been missed.

This isn’t a documentary. It’s not an advertorial for the Trump administration or family. It’s the hard launch of a new lifestyle brand not-so-code-named — yes — “Melania.” ... Hence Mrs. Trump’s multiple references to her “creative vision” within the movie, with the inauguration as her calling card. Hence the many lovingly framed scenes of her towering stilettos. Hence the large amount of film time spent on the details of her inaugural outfits: her insistence that the neckline of the blouse she wore to the swearing-in be sharply crossed, rather than cowl, and that the band on her hat be half an inch narrower. Hence the revelation from Hervé Pierre, the designer who also works as Mrs. Trump’s stylist, that the inaugural gown is in her colors: “black and white.” ... Mrs. Trump agrees. “It’s very me.” ... (By contrast, her husband’s colors are clearly gold, red, white and blue.)



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Clockwise from top left: Mrs. Trump at an inaugural ball in January 2025; at the unveiling of a stamp honoring Barbara Bush at the White House in May 2025; at a White House dinner in February 2025; at the New York Stock Exchange last month. Clockwise from top left, Ruth Fremson/The New York Times; Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times; Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images;

But brand must be more than a series of glossy surfaces. It must at least gesture at having values. Hence the repeated references to her commitment to family and conversations about continuing her work on children’s behalf. ... Marc Beckman, Mrs. Trump’s longtime agent, summed up the thinking in an interview with The Times of London the week before the premiere, noting, “It’s all about supporting this luxury brand that she’s building.” ... The trail of bread crumbs for the Melania brand has been sprinkled throughout the second Trump administration, almost like an extended teaser trailer. And it started years before December 2024, when the “Melania” movie began filming.

Brand Melania was, in fact, originally mooted back in the first Trump administration, when Mrs. Trump sued The Daily Mail for libel for claiming that a modeling agency she had worked for in the 1990s was also an escort service. ... The implication, the suit stated, affected the first lady’s “unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model, brand spokesperson and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories.” Though the brand didn’t take shape at the time, the suit was settled, with Mrs. Trump receiving about $3 million and a public apology, and the seed was planted.

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Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.