The women who saw Melania in theaters: ‘If you’re Republican, this is girls’ night’

The dress code for Lisa Copeland’s big night out: what would Melania wear?

The 60-year-old real estate entrepreneur and nine other friends were headed to Amazon’s new documentary Melania, which debuted in theaters nationwide last week. “We all brought our best power suit,” Copeland said, nodding to Melania Trump’s penchant for neat, tailored menswear-inspired looks. But since she lives in Austin, Texas, Copeland put her own country-glam spin on it: black leather pants and a pearl jacket with diamond and pearl beading.

As Copeland and her friends settled into their seats on opening night, they noticed members of a security detail lining the aisle of their AMC theater. Just before the film started, Cecilia Abbott, wife of Texas governor Greg Abbott, slipped into the front row, just ahead of them. “It was an event for us,” Copeland said. “If you’re a Republican, this is girls’ night.”

The opening weekend of Melania Trump’s documentary, about the 20 days leading up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration and nothing beyond, told a tale of two Americas. Many film critics panned the film (the Guardian’s own zero-star review called it “a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest”). For some, the project’s astronomical price tag came off as a naked attempt by Amazon head Jeff Bezos to buy the support of Donald Trump.

Melania takes a call. Photograph: Amazon

But, as a counter to what Trump voters might call “the coastal elites” who gleefully shared screenshots of empty cinema seating charts, the movie surpassed its very low expectations, bringing $7m – not enough to recoup the $70m it cost to produce and market but enough to make it the top-performing documentary at the box office in a decade.

Former White House press secretary and current Fox host Kayleigh McEnany displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of how movie theaters work by proclaiming her mother’s screening was “standing room only”. “Womanosphere” influencers, who preach a tradwife lifestyle, have urged followers to see the film. Katie Miller, podcast host and wife of Stephen Miller, blamed South Africa for pulling the film from theaters in protest of the Trump regime. “Of course – since they are biased against white people,” she wrote on X.

Indeed, Variety reported the Melania opening weekend audience was 72% female and 83% over the age of 45, a demographic the outlet called a “rarity at a time when the box office is driven by younger men”. According to more data obtained by Variety, 75% of ticket buyers were white, 11% were Hispanic, and 4% were Black and Asian.

“This is the kind of movie you go see if you voted for Trump,” Copeland acknowledged. “If you’re a girl’s girl and you really just want to look at the history of it all and what [Melania has] done for the White House, versus politics, it’s a good movie.”

These Melania fans went in partly hoping for a Real Housewives-esque tell-all – something that, realistically, they were never going to get from a first lady who seemingly values privacy above all else. Instead they saw Melania doing her best Jackie Kennedy White House tour, though she at least played the part of letting her audience in on some secrets.

Copleland said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the documentary. The cinematography looked expensive. As a clotheshorse, Copeland loved peeking behind-the-scenes at Melania’s inauguration gown dress fittings. Her friend Bristal Speciale, a 51-year-old Austinite who owns a land development company, felt Melania displayed “vulnerability” in a scene where she meets a prisoner of war’s wife, and when she spoke about the loss of her mother in 2024. But Speciale was “hoping to see some personal moments, warm and fuzzy with the family”, she said.

Melania and Donald Trump. Photograph: Amazon

Kelsey Davis, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mother and content creator, saw the film near her home in Claremore, Oklahoma, with her aunt and aunt’s best friend. She walked out of the theater – which she noted was “packed” – feeling she learned more about Melania, also pointing to the scene about Melania’s mother. But she thinks the film could have looked beyond the first lady’s “little smirk” to probe her true character.

“I wish we got to see a little bit more of her as Donald Trump’s wife, not so much her as the first lady,” Davis said. “There were still several funny moments in there [like] when Trump was working on his speech, and she insisted that he add something specific. At first he said no, then she demanded it, and he ends up adding it into his speech. I thought it was hilarious, because during his speech, he looked at her and smirked. And she was super cute, because as a wife myself, we always put our two cents in.”

“You can tell in the movie how much they care for each other and love each other,” said Eva Grizzle, referencing one scene where Trump calls his wife “beautiful”. The 43-year-old credit union worker from Lakeland, Florida, has “great admiration for the first lady” and saw Melania last week.

Meanwhile, Copeland liked that Melania “was really about her”, she said. “President Trump was barely in the film. I liked that he didn’t try to make it about him.”

Melania’s relationship with Donald has been a source of endless skepticism. She stood by her husband after the Access Hollywood tape leak, Stormy Daniels affair allegations and E Jean Carroll sexual abuse case. But she famously avoids holding her husband’s hand in public and even swatted it away during a 2017 visit to Tel Aviv. (In her memoir, Melania wrote that the swat was actually her “gently wav[ing] away his attempt” to hold her hand.)

Likewise, the specifics of Melania’s role in the White House have been vague to the point of parody. After Trump’s first inauguration, she took months to hire staff and move from her home in Manhattan to Washington DC. Her few forays into the spotlight were often ridiculed, such as when she wore a colonial-era pith hat on a tour of Africa, or was caught on a secret recording complaining about Christmas decorations. In 2025, she made cryptocurrency and little else – besides this documentary, which she executive produced – her focus.

Martha Jenkins, who did not share her age, and Judy Barlow, who is in her 60s, are the president and vice-president of the National Federation of Republican Women, a political action group that has existed since 1938. They saw the film with other members while in Nashville for a conference. Both women have met Donald but not Melania, though they have been in the same room as her: during the 2024 inauguration, which they attended inside the Capitol Rotunda.

The event was held indoors due to bitterly cold temperatures; Jenkins and Barlow remember being worried about safety, thinking back to the attempted assassination of Trump during his 2024 campaign. “Everything that [Melania] brought forth in the movie really was true to what happened at the inauguration,” Jenkins said. “Without her coming out and saying it, you could tell that the [assassination attempt] weighed heavily upon her, because she was very, very worried about her husband and her entire family.”

Melania on a plane. Photograph: Amazon

Melania (the film) has a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a critics’ score of only 6%. Some on the left, including Jimmy Kimmel, speculated that rightwing bots may have juiced the numbers. But Rotten Tomatoes’ owner said in a statement to Variety that “there has been no bot manipulation”. Rumors have also swirled around nebulous “fake ticket sales”. (Jenkins’s group saw the film later in the evening after a group dinner, in an almost empty theater.) But Puck reported that representatives for Amazon, Regal and AMC Theaters “did not experience unusual block purchases of tickets” for the film.

“I know there’s all types of criticism coming from the left,” Jenkins said. “I don’t think the movie itself is political.” The National Federation of Republican Women posted a picture of some New Jersey chapter members attending a screening on Facebook; they later took it down after a flurry of negative comments. “The film has been made political by people who, frankly, hate President Trump.”

It did not help that Melania debuted the day more Epstein files were released – and its director Brett Ratner, who had not worked since being accused of sexual assault and harassment during Hollywood’s #MeToo movement, appeared in a photo with the disgraced financier. (Ratner has said he “didn’t have a personal relationship” with Epstein and had denied the #MeToo allegations.)

Davis was appreciative that the many firestorms surrounding Trump’s second term did not make it into the doc. “The film didn’t show much about all the hot topics going on with ICE and the borders, obviously, because it was filmed before then. It was kind of a breath of fresh air, because Melania lets her husband deal with that, and she just sticks to her role, which I have a lot of respect for,” Davis said. She also noted that the film “showcased several immigrants”, including Melania herself and Hervé Pierre, Melania’s stylist, who was born in France. “I think that was beautiful.”

Angelina, a 25-year-old member of the Palm Beach Young Republicans Club who has visited Mar-a-Lago and met other members of the Trump family, has not been to a movie theater “in years”. But she rolled up to a crowded screening with some family members, who had to split up to find seats.

Angelina, who did not want to share her last name to protect her privacy at work, agreed that Melania is not “a very politics-focused” film. “Like 70% of the documentary was Melania with her [fashion] designers, her day-to-day,” she said. When inauguration day did arrive on screen, she said the whole theater broke out in applause: “There was a lot of clapping, I will tell you that.”

Due to Melania’s initial success, Amazon plans to open it in 300 more movie theaters for its second weekend. That means it will now play on 2,000 screens across the country during Super Bowl weekend – a historically slow weekend at the movies, as Americans stay home to watch the game. Puerto Rican rap superstar Bad Bunny is set to perform at the half-time show, much to Maga’s chagrin. It may be Melania (the film’s) stiffest competition yet.