The reviews are in for Melania, Amazon’s $40m hagiography of the US first lady, and they’re… pretty much uniformly stinking. The Independent called it “a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness”, the Guardian’s reviewer worried “I have not only learned nothing but lost brain cells” and James Ball of this parish found it “simply mind-numbingly inane”.
But there are a few outliers. The Daily Mail commissioned Link Lauren, an oddball US influencer who was a senior aide to Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid and styles himself ‘Maga Malfoy’ in a nod to his similarity to the Harry Potter character. Lauren had been invited to watch a screening at the White House – and unsurprisingly loved it.
“Grateful to be included, I felt like the kid in Almost Famous, inexplicably sitting at the cool kids’ table,” Lauren wrote, instantly setting out his stall as an impartial film reviewer.
“An enigmatic figure, Mrs Trump pulls back the curtain and brings us along as she moves through her days,” he marvels. “Here is a First Lady engaged in every detail, right down to the cups the First Family will drink out of – these are decisions that must be made.
“The film’s soundtrack provides a fascinating insight – a pulsing playlist of 80s hits: Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, Spandau Ballet’s True and Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World. I wanted to get up and dance during the screening, but the agents with earpieces lining the walls of the East Room gave me pause.”
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The expensive boredom of Melania
At one point, Lauren can only marvel at the fact that Melania is such an incredible mother she does not want to take the risk of her son being killed. “This is Melania the matriarch, the mama bear who will stop at nothing to protect her family.” (That “stop at nothing” is to ask the director of the secret service: “Is it safe?”.)
“She is polite but she is firm, the epitome of soft power,” says Lauren. “I would not want to cross Mrs Trump.
“At one point we see her listening as her husband rehearses his inauguration speech. ‘My proudest legacy will be that of peacemaker,’ he says. ‘Peacemaker – and unifier,’ Melania corrects. It is hard to escape that we are watching Melania set down a legacy of her own – after years of mistruths and having her story filtered through partisan media lenses.”
No chance of a partisan media lens when such a fearlessly independent and respected movie critic like Lauren is around!
Meanwhile, the latest releases from the Epstein files show Melania’s excellent judgment when selecting the director for her puff piece. Brett Ratner is pictured on a sofa alongside Epstein with two young women, their faces redacted. In one picture Ratner cuddles a woman who reclines between him and Epstein.
In another picture Ratner appears with Epstein, three other women and the French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in prison in 2022 while charged with the rape of minors.
