Melania, Brett Ratner’s documentary about the sitting First Lady of the United States, has arrived in theaters worldwide. As documentaries go, the movie is a pricey one: Produced by Melania Trump herself, it was purchased by Amazon MGM Studios for $40 million, more than quadruple the price of the average doc, and Amazon has reportedly spent another $35 million to market it, albeit selectively (advance screeners were not provided to TIME, and the streamer declined to allow mainstream press to attend the premiere).
The Thursday night premiere at the Opera House of the newly minted Trump Kennedy Center did have many members of the Trump Administration in attendance, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. According to Variety, the President answered questions on the red carpet while the First Lady posed for photos. The movie marks a return for Ratner, following allegations of sexual misconduct made in 2017, which he has denied; it is expected to earn between $3 and $5 million at the box office during its opening weekend.
As far as documentaries on celebrities and luminaries go, Melania avoids major revelations, instead favoring a glimpse of a brief moment in time and lightly touching on the issues that intersect with her present role.
Here’s what happens in Melania.
Preparing for inauguration
The film takes place in the 20 days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, including the day itself. Following various close-ups of the First Lady’s heels and shots of her traveling in cars and private jets, she settles into a meeting with her fashion designer, Hervé Pierre, at Trump Tower. “I want to show the American people my life,” she says in voiceover.
The first order of business in doing so is trying on a glamorous black jacket for the inauguration. She offers meticulous notes on subtle changes for how to improve it. She knows fashion well, having grown up with aspirations to become a model, leaving her home country of Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia) for Italy at a young age to pursue those dreams. “I respect the time it takes to create timeless pieces,” Trump notes. (She makes numerous references throughout the film to being an immigrant and to her “home country,” though she never names it.)
Fashion is a passion, she reveals, passed down from her mother, Amalija Knavs, who designed clothing. It was from her, Trump says, that she learned that “beauty comes from dedication, and even the smallest detail matters.” Her mother died on Jan. 9, 2024, and in the film, Trump is approaching the one-year anniversary of her death. When the day comes, the documentary shows her and the President attending Jimmy Carter’s funeral. She says she’s overwhelmed with emotion.
Meetings and phone calls
Later, in her office, Trump has a video call with the First Lady of France, Brigitte Macron. (In an interesting detail, Macron’s laptop stand is propped up on a large hardcover book titled Melania). They speak about the American First Lady’s philanthropic initiative Fostering the Future, a program that gives college sponsorships to kids in the foster-care system. She also discusses plans to ramp up her Be Best campaign during her husband’s second term, seeking to combat cyberbullying while promoting youth mental health. Additionally, she meets with the Queen of Jordan, Rania Al Abdullah, and the two discuss their mutual passion for philanthropy.
The film also shows her meeting with Aviva Siegel, one of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Since she has been freed, Siegel was advocating for the release of her husband Keith, who was still being held hostage at the time. Trump expresses her sympathies, and assures Siegel that one of her husband’s top priorities is freeing the hostages. She remarks in voiceover that “You don’t forget these people. They live with you, always.” The film’s postscript reveals that Keith Siegel was freed in February 2025.
In another snippet, Melania Trump’s chief of staff, Hayley Harrison, has a phone call with a man who says a reporter has gotten in touch with him seeking information about how the documentary came about with Amazon. After the call, Ratner asks her, “Do you trust those Hollywood people?”
“Absolutely not,” Harrison responds. Neither Amazon nor the documentary itself are mentioned again.
Mar-A-Lago, Barron, and more inauguration prep
In the film, the First Lady goes on a brief retreat to Mar-A-Lago. She reveals that her favorite recording artist is Michael Jackson, and that her favorite song is “Billie Jean.” She and Ratner sing along to it when it comes on the radio,. She calls the Florida estate a “place where [she] can exhale,” and her last chance for peace before the inauguration.
Little is shown of the actual planning for the inauguration, though Trump regularly speaks of what a big deal it is. We see the invitations (they’re red), but not much else.
One moment finds President Trump and the First Lady going over security details for the inauguration. They have the option to leave the car at numerous spots along the way, but Melania Trump in particular is concerned for their safety. “Especially with everything that’s been going on within the last year,” she says, leaving viewers to infer that she is likely referring, at least in part, to the assassination attempt on Trump in July 2024 in Pennsylvania.
Throughout the film, Trump speaks regularly about her pride in her son Barron. He appears extensively in the film’s final act, though he does not speak in the documentary. We also see most of Trump’s family, Melania Trump’s father, as well as Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Jeff Bezos, who gets camera time at the exceptionally fancy Candlelight Dinner, which is held the night before inauguration, to celebrate the donors who helped make the campaign possible.
The day arrives with fanfare
Finally, inauguration day arrives. We see the personal effects of the Biden family being removed from the White House. The First Lady notes that the Trump family’s belongings cannot be brought in until 12:01 pm, when he is officially sworn in as the next POTUS. The inauguration consists of a back-to-back events schedule throughout the day, finishing with multiple balls before the night is through. During the swearing in, FLOTUS observes that she “felt the weight of history, entwined with my own history as an immigrant…no matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity.”
That night, she and President Trump celebrate the start of his second term. The First Lady dances to “YMCA,” though she does not do the traditional dance spelling out the letters, instead waving her arms back and forth and smiling. She and the President return to the White House at around 2 a.m. and share their excitement around starting President Trump’s next term.
“I feel energized to serve the American people,” she says in the final voiceover. “I will move forward with purpose, and of course, style,” she says, as the film ends. In rapid succession in the credits, the film lists First Lady’s various accomplishments in her role as first lady, most of which have gone unmentioned throughout the film.
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