Melania Trump’s soft power: The documentary on the model first lady goes deeper than you’d think |
“Melania” is a study in what Ernest Hemingway called “grace under pressure.”
Hemingway knew a thing or two about the subject — he had to write gracefully under the intense pressure he, and his publisher and critics, placed on himself, and the tales he told were about men striving for grace under the pressures of physical danger and psychological torment.
“Melania” is a woman’s tale, of a kind that often goes untold.
Melania Trump is under pressure for what she is, both naturally and thanks to events: She’s a beautiful woman, a force unto herself in the fashion world, and the wife of the most powerful man on the planet.
Politics is a world of pressure with very little grace — can Melania maintain hers amid the whirlwind?
Brett Ratner’s documentary is a peek into her life in the weeks leading up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
Naturally, it’s been met by sneers from left-leaning critics, who are the more bitter because the film’s a box-office success: “Melania” had the best opening weekend of any documentary in a decade.
But the haters would do themselves a favor if they took this film more seriously. It’s going to be watched for years to come for reasons that have nothing to do with today’s politics.
It’s not so much a documentary as a document — it directly testifies to some basic truths.
In fact, they’re so basic, they’re embarrassing: Hans Christian Andersen tells the story of a little boy who shocks absolutely everyone by telling the truth about the emperor’s........