General Discussion

February 6, 20263:00 AM ET

...So what word would each of you use to describe the Melania documentary as a whole?

ALISON WILLMORE: I would say airless ...

WILLMORE: It is an incredibly manicured production that gives you very little that looks like an authentic beat of people, like, not being intensely aware that the cameras are there and what they're there for ...

WILLMORE: ... she does not appear on camera at all, like, without the full face of makeup and the hair. So she is sitting on this sofa watching the news, and it's very clearly arranged. But also, at a certain point, Brett Ratner's camera, like, zooms in very close to her eyes. And it's like he's trying really hard to find emotion there, you know, while she says some kind of platitudes about all the destruction, to be horrified at the loss with no emotion, you know, in the voiceover. And I feel like that best embodies the airlessness of this movie to me, which is that you have this scene of, like, real destruction that was unfolding at the time ...
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https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5703364