Critics tough on film about U.S. First Lady, but it also had one of the best box office opening weekends ever for a documentary

Thank heavens for movie critics. They can steer you toward hidden cinema treasures, and they can ensure you never darken the door of a theatre showing the worst of film flops.

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And the latter is what they’re doing for some folks with “Melania” the movie, despite the subject’s five-word avowal that the tightly choreographed vanity project is “beautiful, emotional, fashionable, and cinematic.”

Fortunately for me, there is no dedicated movie house in West End, Roatan, the Honduran community where I was hunkered down as a few dyed-in-the-wool MAGA-fans awaited the Jan. 30 premiere. And so, I am unable to deliver a first-person review.

However, I have been following the critics’ responses with great interest, and I can honestly say that it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed the type of creative writing that “Melania” has inspired.

The Guardian’s Xan Brooks was just getting warmed up when he wrote: “No doubt there is a great documentary to be made about Melania Knauss, the ambitious model from out of Slovenia who married a New York real-estate mogul and then found herself cast in the role of a........

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