As I presented my ticket to the usher at a West London’s Vue cinema on a drizzly Friday morning, I asked him if there had been much interest in the film.
He responds with a small shake of the head.
‘The media said Melania was going to be big,’ he said, which made me wonder where he was getting his information. ‘So far, not really.’
I nodded and headed towards the screen.
‘It’s still going to be a really interesting watch, though!’ he called after me. The hint of desperation in his voice was impossible to ignore.
Of course, I hadn’t expected bustling crowds and queues out the door for the cinematic release of Melania, the controversial behind-the-scenes glimpse at the life of the First Lady.
But nor did I expect the cinema foyer to be quite so empty.
Unsurprisingly, the reception so far has been lukewarm. Even before it hit screens, there was a lot about the film that seemed primed to raise eyebrows – because it seemed, to me and countless others, an obvious attempt not to entertain the masses, but for Amazon to curry favour with Donald Trump.
The film was acquired by Jeff Bezos’ firm for a record-breaking $40 million before filming even commenced, with a further $35 million set aside to market it.
Melania, the film’s star and executive producer, is reportedly pocketing $28m herself.
Brett Ratner, the director behind the Rush Hour franchise and the original X Men films is at the helm of the project, making his return to the Hollywood sphere after allegations, which he denies, that he sexually harassed a number of women.
Ratner joined a number of senior business figures at a private White House screening last week, not exactly refuting the idea that this whole endeavour is little more than an exercise in buttering up Trump, who holds on to grudges like no previous occupant of the West Wing.
Despite the President’s claims that multiplexes are selling out the film, elsewhere the picture around the documentary is far from rosy.
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It has been reported that the crew on the film are trying to get their name scrubbed from the credits, and ticket sales on both sides of the Atlantic have been virtually non-existent; Vue, more diplomatically, described sales as ‘soft’.
I can attest to that.
Screen 18, where this first showing of Melania was taking place, feels like it only seats about 20 people, and I was the first in.
Just as I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to be treated like a Silicon Valley executive and have my own private screening, a man walked in, not up for a chat.
He was followed by two middle-aged women, and as the inevitable trailers started, I asked them why they wanted to watch the world’s most controversial film.
‘We saw Hamnet last week and thought the trailer for this looked really good,’ the blonde one sitting closest to me explained, almost apologetically.
‘And you never really hear from her, do you? I almost wonder whether she’s [Melania] drunk the Kool-Aid and really believes any of what Trump says?’
Another, slightly older woman sat on our row, while a young man in a long grey coat, carrying a notepad, sat with the popcorn man. Clocking his notepad, it seems obvious he’s also a journalist.
This motley crew of six was it for the grand first screening (bar another woman, who came in 20 minutes late and left 20 minutes later).
A more appropriate title for Melania would be 50 Shades of Beige. The film uncomfortably straddles both the boring and the bizarre.
Opening scenes see the 55-year-old First Lady board a massive, Trump adorned private plane (featuring, I kid you not, a bobblehead of Donald Trump dressed as The Terminator) before entering the gold encrusted walls of Trump Tower all soundtracked to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.
The film is keen to present Melania as a woman of precision, though with a ‘sense of fun’ (there’s one painstaking scene where she and the hands-on Ratner perform karaoke.
We see how meticulously she works alongside designers to create her inauguration look, asking for fabrics to be sharper, tighter.
This is also mirrored in her preparation for the candlelit dinner that takes place the night before the ceremony where Trump is sworn in for the second time, the closest this dull film gets to a sense of jeopardy.
Trump rarely features, which is unsurprising; Melania clearly values aesthetics above all and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone more visually and spiritually unappealing.
The pair mostly spend time apart, catching up over phone calls where Trump talks at rather than to his wife about how good he is.
This, of course, is a couple focused on optics as opposed to anything of any real substance – Trump, after all, has the emotional range and intelligence of a pork scratching. The time they spend together, however, is telling; their relationship is distant, bar the occasional hand holding.
As well as motherhood, Melania adds that she wants to develop the role of The First Lady and carry on her charitable campaigns, including her Be Best campaign which aims to tackle cyberbullying.
Protecting children, the First Lady explains, is what she wants to focus on when back in office; a wild thing to say when married to someone who features prominently in the Epstein files.
This is the strange tension that underpins the 108 minutes in the cinema; Melania may have hoped that the film showed us more about who she was, but I was left with even more questions.
As she ignores the excesses of her husband’s second term – the name-calling, the immigration raids, the stifling of decent, I’m left unsure whether she’s wilfully ignorant or genuinely just stupid.
Nearly two hours later, the only good thing I can say about Melania Trump with any certainty is that she has nice hair.
Of course, the film was never meant to be an exercise in morality; rather, this was merely another branch of propaganda from the Trump administration – but even propaganda is usually less dull than this.
Bezos, assumingly making an investment in this movie to protect his own business interests (Amazon has a number of contracts with US Government departments) is certainly not hiding away from a business decision that has sparked an internal revolt in his company.
The unmistakable bald dome of the Amazon founder features in numerous shots – and it serves as another reminder of just how seedy an enterprise this whole exercise is.
That is what should offend right-thinking people most, not how bad the film is.
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And take it from someone who suffered through it – this film is bad. Vacuous, empty, and devoid of any emotional heft.
Thankfully, though, at least some of us in the UK have our heads screwed on properly.
As I turned to see what my new friends made of it, one was already grimly shaking her head, telling me ‘that’s two hours I won’t get back.’
She’s right – but it will take far longer than mere hours to wash away the stain of this beige vanity exercise.
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