Oh Melania
Calling this turkey of a film pedestrian is an insult to feet.
The Alabama Solution features footage shot by inmates inside prisons using contraband cellphones. The movie, which is up for an Oscar next month, is available on HBO in the United States and on Crave in Canada. It is very hard to watch. And what it shows is not limited to Alabama. All throughout the country people in prisons are treated badly — exploited financially, beaten, sometimes killed. With little to no accountability for the people who, clearly, use disproportionate force.
Maybe you think, hey, people who have committed crimes don’t deserve to live in an institution that’s more like a hotel than a prison. I guess, up to a point. Overcrowding without AC in summer temperatures that often reach or surpass 40 degrees celsius, to pick just one example, is nothing short of cruelty. It does nothing to reform those inmates who will one day get out.
You know a documentary is good when it leads people to discuss and debate the issues it portrays. And certainly this one continues to make waves in the state legislature in Montgomery and elsewhere.
In the best tradition of documentary filmmaking, The Alabama Solution uses stories to make a point. To effect change. To do good. It threads together narratives that tell a tale. It interviews people in power, asking them tough questions. It makes viewers uncomfortable, showing them what happens in their name to people who are incarcerated.
It is real, raw, and hard-hitting.
By exceedingly painful contrast, the “documentary” about Melania Trump has the warmth and authenticity of an Eastern European mail-order bride who sleeps her way into money and would smile as she sunk her Louboutin heels into your idealistic heart if she thought it might advance her interests by an eighth of an inch.
I went to see it on Monday night, at the Gloucester cineplex in Ottawa. There were four other people watching with me. Not exactly a box office hit. I showed up armed with an emotional support IPA and a most unhealthy snack because I knew I’d need ultraprocessed carbs to get through this much fakery.
I went to see it because even though I made fun of her and this ridiculous turkey of a film, there was a part of me that worried we were punishing the woman for the sins of her husband — as we so often do in this business. Hillary Clinton would no doubt have words to say about that. I thought, hold on just a minute. What if she’s being used? Are we wrong to slam her over this?
I thought it was worth the price of admission to find out. And my conclusion is that she knows exactly what she’s doing. This is no victim. So, you know, slam away.
I’m not an Oscar-nominated anything, but I’ve produced half a dozen documentaries in my life and watching Melania I was struck by how unreal it felt. Some footage is real and was shot at the time, clearly. Like the inauguration ceremony. But so much of the film felt like it had been reshot after the fact to make every little detail look perfect. Including that sly “Here we go again” remark you see in the trailer. I’d be amazed if she actually said that on the day of.
Fake or not, I found the movie execrable. Calling it pedestrian would be an insult to feet. It’s all about how perfectly put together she is, with hair and makeup and nails always just so, and the best footwear collection this side of Imelda Marcos. (Ask your parents, kids.)
She reminded me of my kids’ cat: perfectly poised, polished and looking like the best, most expensive little doll, the one with a limited vocabulary, a benign level of intelligence and looking perpetually flummoxed.
The only genuine display of self-confidence happens when she’s getting fitted for her clothes. She is, clearly, comfortable in her body and she has an impressive knowledge of how to make sure clothes flatter her. Which is a good skill to have, no question about it. Otherwise it’s hard to discern what, if anything, is going on behind those heavily made-up eyes, other than an absolute thirst for power and adulation.
The movie feels fake, sounds fake (except for the soundtrack) and looks like the biggest cubic zirconia money can buy.
Watch at your own risk. Don’t forget the beer.