Is Melania the ultimate Marmite First Lady?

Slated by critics, hated by liberals... but loved by the general public, Mrs Trump's controversial new £29million documentary shows she is positioning herself for life after the White House

- By Peter Sheridan in Los Angeles

Melania with the President and at the White House

THERE are no grey areas with Melania Trump. Everything is very clearly black or white. Critics have hated the First Lady's documentary, released earlier this month and titled simply Melania, almost as much as audiences have loved it.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump have wanted her movie to succeed as eagerly as his opponents have prayed for it to flop.

The film vindicated Melania with its record opening weekend at the box office, and delighted her detractors when its earnings plummeted this last weekend.

Slickly made with glossy adoring shots of her soaring stilettos, designer gowns and cheekbones sharp enough to fillet a flounder, while it won't win any Oscars, the production is not the mortifying mess that many Left-wingers hoped it would be.

More importantly, it has established Melania Trump as a commanding presence ready to hold centre stage in her own right: a possible nod towards her post-Washington DC future stepping out on her own.

While Donald Trump resides in the White House, Melania now lives in a gilded tower at the couple's Mara-Lago estate in Florida.

Considering the veiled tensions between the duo in recent years — the slapped-away hand, the withering side-eye, reports of separate bedrooms, and Trump chronicler Michael Wolff claiming "they are separated" and "live separate lives" — the documentary could be seen as a major step towards her independence.

She is such a polarising figure that it should be no surprise that in the documentary the First Lady's stylist, Hervé Pierre, describes the inaugural gown Melania wore last year as being in her colours: "Black and white."

"It's very me," agrees Melania, aged 55.