The Most Brutal Melania Trump Documentary Reviews Are Sure To Humble Her

The Melania Trump documentary, aptly titled "Melania," has made history by having the widest critic-to movie-goer review difference in the history of Rotten Tomatoes. While the site's Popcornmeter, which is calculated using ratings from people who go to see the film, stands at an amazing 99%, the critic score is just 6%. With "Melania," critics have found a movie they feel is so terrible that they don't hold back. And the most brutal reviews are sure to knock Melania's ego down a notch.

While some publications tried to keep things civil, with the Hollywood Reporter calling it "expensive propaganda" and The Atlantic saying the doc is "a disgrace," other critics were less kind. Variety considered the movie to be a "cheeseball infomercial of staggering inertia," before comparing it to "state-sanctioned propaganda out of 1960s Communist China." The Independent focuses on Melania's "grating voiceovers" and believes that calling the movie vapid "would do a disservice to the plumes of florid vape smoke that linger around British teenagers."

The Guardian didn't hold back, either. In their especially harsh review, they call the documentary "a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest" and says the Melania herself has "a face like a fist and a voice of sheet metal" before comparing her to the witch from the "Hansel and Gretel" fairytale before summing it all up with "two hours of Melania feels like pure, endless hell." But the one critical jab at the movie that has captured the internet's heart is, "If they showed this film on a plane, people would still walk out." This line has been attributed to Variety, but does not actually appear in their review, and Snopes has been unable to find where it actually came from. 

"Melania" has been controversial from the moment it was first announced. The movie, made by Amazon, cost the company $45 million before marketing, with Melania Trump reportedly getting $28 million. The announcement of the movie and its shockingly high budget — it is the second costliest documentary of all time, according to Film Stories – was quickly met with questions. The Guardian suggested that Jeff Bezos paid the cost to endear himself and his company to Donald Trump. Adding to the controversy was the choice of Brett Ratner to helm the movie. Ratner was best known for the "Rush Hour" movies before being accused of sexual harassment by six women in 2017. 

The controversies continued to build just before the release of the movie when it was revealed that two-thirds of the production crew on "Melania" requested that their names be removed from the credits. Along with that story, the lead-up to the release was also plagued by poor early ticket sales, with reports that it was on track to open around $5 million. "Melania" ended up with a first weekend total of $7.1 million, but online sleuths were quick to point out some shady aspects to the ticket sales. According to insiders, the way tickets were purchased suggests "block buying," which would point to a single person or entity purchasing large amounts of seats to make the film look more popular than it really is. Then, a week after the movie opened, Melania used an official White House event to promote the film while claiming she wasn't promoting the movie.