The Amazon documentary about US First Lady Melania Trump was described as “propaganda” by the New York Times, “pure, endless hell” by the Guardian and “disgraceful” by The Atlantic. At the same time, “Melania” was a popular hit in American cinemas and grossed the equivalent of SEK 62 million on its opening weekend.
The film received an unusually high rating of 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ so-called “Popcorn Meter,” which measures audience opinions. The value is on par with Orson Welles’ classic “Citizen Kane” and higher than all three “The Godfather” films. However, only 8 percent of critics rated the film positively. The film site has never before measured such a gap between critics’ and the public’s verdicts, reports The Independent.
The Rotten Tomatoes rating stands out. On another popular film site, Letterboxd, the documentary about the American first lady has a historically low rating: 1.1 out of 5. On Imbd, it gets a 1.3 out of 10, making it one of the five worst-rated films in Imdb history, according to Forbes.
The wide discrepancy, both between different sites and between critics and audiences, has raised questions about whether Rotten Tomatoes’ numbers could be manipulated, but the site’s owner, Versant, recently denied the allegations in a statement to Variety magazine:
“There was no bot manipulation of audience reviews for the documentary ‘Melania,’ the reviews displayed on Popcornmeter are verified reviews, meaning users have verifiably purchased a ticket to the film.”
Read more:
Ingmar Nevéus: The Melania film is a total flop in New York
The film “Melania” was shortened – is now breaking box office records
