If you’ve seen the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 — prominently featuring shots of stiletto heels walking down corridors — you’ve got the general drift of what director Brett Ratner is up to in Melania. Melania is a high heels-forward documentary.

It covers the 20 days prior to her husband’s second inauguration, when much planning is required of a First Lady: Ball and banquet invitations, place-settings for a candle-lit dinner in Washington D.C.’s National Building Museum. Her staff previews for her the golden egg that will be that meal’s first course, and wonders whether the rectangular tablecloths should have broad gold stripes, and the round ones narrow stripes, or vice versa. So many decisions, and she’s on top of all of them.

The once-and-future President makes an occasional appearance, including in what appears to be a staged flashback to an election-night phone call. At another point, she drops by with her camera crew as he’s rehearsing his inaugural speech, and she suggests that he identify himself as a peacemaker “and a unifier.“ He incorporates it on the big day — in the film to a big burst of applause, which inspires a quick nod to his wife in gratitude. That’s not quite how it played out in real life; the applause and the nod are editing tricks. But never mind, the film Melania is her story, and — as not just its leading lady, but also an executive producer — she’s entitled to tell it any way she wants, peppered with needle drops from her favorite songs, including Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

It’s a story that’s not without hiccups — the blouse collar that’s loose in the back, and not high enough; Former President Carter’s inconvenient death just before the inauguration, with his funeral falling on the first anniversary of her mother’s death. The First Lady talks in scripted voiceover through this section about missing her mom, and in decidedly unspontaneous voiceovers elsewhere about the Capitol building’s history, and her respect for the military, and at one point about the “elegance and sophistication of our donors,” as the camera drifts past Jeff Bezos, whose company Amazon did indeed donate $1 million for the inaugural.

It also paid $40 million to buy this film. That price makes Melania arguably the most expensive infomercial in history. It also makes it inconceivable that the film will return a profit — it’s only expected to take in a paltry $5 million dollars worldwide this weekend. That’s prompted speculation in Hollywood circles about what else Amazon thinks it bought when it purchased the film.

But that will be fodder someday for a far better documentary than the curated, airbrushed, glamorously dressed portrait that is Melania.

Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s recent financial supporters and pays to distribute some NPR content.

On Christmas morning, the man I thought I needed left me in another man’s cabin.

Hours earlier, Thom and I had been sprawled on the floor of a Santa Rosa utility closet where we’d been living, passing a meth pipe between us. I was 34 at the time. The mattress barely fit and it folded like a taco beside lube and dead torch lighters. Thom, in his 50s, had become my partner in chaos.

“Christmas. Anything you wanna do?” he asked with a tenderness I didn’t trust.

I scrolled Grindr. I’d traded seeing my family for crystal meth and the relief of nobody expecting anything of me.

After crashing my mom’s car and a stint in jail, I couldn’t face her disappointment. A decade in New York had promised stardom; by Christmas 2016, the promise had curdled. All I had left were men who only wanted my body. That was all I had left to give.

I showed Thom a torso-only photo on Grindr. “This guy’s having people over.”

He squinted. “That’s Ed.”

Thom’s Prius wound into Guerneville, a gay mountain retreat with meth undercurrents. That’s where Ed, a onetime costume designer, held his gatherings. Porn playing, GHB Gatorade, torch lighters that actually worked — everything we’d failed at. Billy, who was in his mid-20s, answered the door naked.

The cabin smelled of rot and wood smoke. We stripped down. It was part ritual, part performance. It’s how I’d stayed high and housed for the last few months. So I knew what came next. I knew my role. I pulled on a jockstrap two sizes too small.

Ed, who was in his 60s, grinned. “You’ve got that ‘West Side Story’ face, like you’re about to break into dance at the gym,” he said.

“Well, I played Tony,” I shot back. “No dancing for me.”

He laughed, and we were off, trading theater jokes, wardrobe malfunction stories and references Thom couldn’t follow. Thom’s jaw tightened as our connection excluded him.

He watched, his contempt spilling over, calculating whether I was worth competing for.

His face said exactly what I was: too much, replaceable. We were all using each other: Ed and Thom locked in an old rivalry, me the bait that kept older men supplied with boys. Billy was about to be replaced by me — I didn’t care. That was the cycle.

Thom yanked on his jeans, gave me one last sharp look and slammed the door. I waited for his car to circle back, even just to tell me off, but it never did. So I stayed with Ed.

Months blurred together without Thom. His absence weighed more than his presence ever had. With Ed, there was more than meth and sex. He spoke to the part of me that still loved literature, pop culture, acting — the part I assumed died. It wasn’t love the way people imagine it, but it was the closest thing I’d felt in years.

We settled into a routine of smoking, not sleeping, drawn curtains and dirty dishes until one morning I made peace with dying in a chemical haze.

“You really loved Thom,” Ed whispered over eggs neither of us wanted and then added, “I’m just glad I won.”

The words were petty, but I knew what he meant. I wasn’t just another Billy. In his own broken way, Ed cared, enough to know I didn’t belong there, not forever.

I stared at him, trying to read his next move. Was he kicking me out?

“If I let you stay here, I’d never forgive myself.” His voice was low, steadier than usual.

Ed was a dark character, fueled by his own hurt — he didn’t need to consider my future, he could’ve kept using me like everyone else had.

“Would you take me to L.A.?” I asked.

Ed nodded. “I’ve got an uncle in Venice.”

So we packed up his orange Honda Element. We tried leaving a few times, car loaded, engine running, but we were too high or too terrified of life on life’s terms. Then we finally made it. Even collapse felt easier in motion than rotting in that cabin.

The Central Valley stretched endlessly with dead grass and lawyer billboards. As palm trees started appearing, the air felt different — warmer, full of promises I hadn’t earned. But I told myself I would — if I could just get clean.

Ed’s uncle’s garage apartment reeked of must and jug wine. It was blocks from Venice Beach, yet still a prison. I didn’t know how to break free from the drug or the cycle that had trapped me. “Isn’t there a Ferris wheel on the beach?”

This was me trying to sound like I’d be willing to brave the world outside. But Ed knew better.

“That’s Santa Monica, the pier.”

The next day I reached out to Diana, an old college friend in North Hollywood. I’d told myself just get to L.A. — old connections would save me. But the look on her face when she saw me, my emaciated frame, the chemical burn under my clavicle, sour smell I couldn’t mask, told me otherwise. She hugged me stiffly, then pulled back.

“Jesus, Nick,” she said.

Ed said he was leaving and going back to Guerneville, but I begged for one more night. At a cheap motel, I accused him of hiding drugs.

“They’re my drugs,” Ed snapped. He grabbed his keys and was gone.

Abandonment had a sound — engine noise fading into Ventura Boulevard traffic. By morning, I still hadn’t slept. Outside, the sky burned neon pink and orange, the kind of L.A. sunrise that’s beautiful even if it’s born from smog. I just lay there, listening. Every car that slowed could be Diana or nobody.

At 10 a.m., she knocked, flinched when she saw me and helped me into her car. On the drive, she filled the silence with inconsequential chatter, as if nothing had changed. I pressed my forehead to the glass and counted palm trees to slow my heart.

Three months later, I landed at Van Ness Recovery House, an old Victorian in Beachwood Canyon under the Hollywood sign — 20 beds, three group sessions a day and nowhere left to lie.

The program director, Kathy, slid me a scrap of paper. It had a phone number with an area code I recognized.

“Ed?” I asked, though it wasn’t really a question. I knew what was next. I’d told the whole story in group. She knew everything.

“No contact. Ever,” Kathy said. I nodded.

“Tell him it’s over, and then hang up.”

Kathy handed me the phone. My hands shook as I dialed.

“Nick! How are you, sweetheart?” Ed answered, his voice warm and familiar.

Tears came before words. “Ed, I can’t … They say I can’t talk to you anymore.”

Silence stretched as Kathy watched and waited.

“But you helped me. You got me here. You …”

“Hang up, Nick,” she said firmly. “He’s a backdoor to your recovery.”

“I have to go,” I whispered.

“Wait, Nick, …” he started, but I hung up, Kathy’s eyes still on me. I handed the receiver back to her.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said. “This is your last chance. You can’t afford an escape route.”

Outside, the Hollywood sign caught the afternoon light. For the first time in months, no meth psychosis obstructed my view. It looked different, not a destination, but a witness.

Ten years later, I’m married to someone I met at an AA meeting; a quiet, steady love, the opposite of the chaos I once mistook for devotion. We bought a house in the Valley, have two rescue bulldogs. Today, when I drive past Van Ness — that old Victorian recovery house where I learned to tell the truth — I remember the Nick who thought survival was the same as love.

It wasn’t. But it got me to Los Angeles, where I finally learned the difference.

The author is a Los Angeles–based writer with recent bylines in the Cut, HuffPost and the Washington Post.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

2026 was an especially notable year for the Sundance Film Festival: it was the first without its legendary founder Robert Redford, who died last year, and it was the last to be held in Park City, Utah. Beginning next year, the fest will relocate to Boulder, Colo. for the foreseeable future.

As Sundance said goodbye to its home of over 40 years and honored Redford’s legacy, protests continued in Minnesota and across the country due to the escalated presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents on day three of Sundance, and at least one protest against ICE took place in Park City afterward. A man was arrested for assaulting Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost at a Sundance party; on social media, Frost said the man yelled racist slurs and said President Trump was going to deport Frost.

And in the middle of it all: movies. Sundance awards were announced on Friday; Josephine, director Beth de Araújo’s intense family drama, won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize (more on that below), and Nuisance Bear, Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s film set in Churchill, Manitoba, the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize. (You can see the full list of winners here.)

I was on the ground for the first few days of the fest and then caught up with more films at home during the virtual portion. Here are a few of my favorites.

Once Upon a Time in Harlem

Aaron Douglas, Jean Blackwell Hutson, Nathan Huggins, Richard Bruce Nugent, Eubie Blake and Irvin C. Miller in Once Upon A Time In Harlem.

William Greaves Productions/Sundance Institute

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William Greaves Productions/Sundance Institute

Hands down, the best film I saw is simultaneously old and new: In 1972, groundbreaking filmmaker William Greaves convened an intellectual gathering of the living dignitaries of the Harlem Renaissance at the palatial home of Duke Ellington. The project remained unfinished until now; it’s finally been restored and completed by Greaves’ son David, who served as a cameraman all those years ago. (William died in 2014.) What was captured is a priceless, crucial, and riveting piece of history — notable figures like actor Leigh Whipper, journalist Gerri Major, visual artist Aaron Douglas, and activist Richard B. Moore engaging in vivid anecdotes and passionate debates about that cultural movement and how it should be remembered. The excavation of such history feels nothing short of monumental.

Josephine

Gemma Chan, Mason Reeves and Channing Tatum in Josephine from director Beth de Araújo.

Greta Zozula/Sundance Institute

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The buzziest film out of Sundance is probably Beth de Araújo’s sophomore feature starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan as the parents of Josephine (Mason Reeves), an 8-year-old girl who witnesses a horrific crime in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. And for good reason; while I have critiques of some of de Araújo’s filmmaking choices, she’s crafted a tense and mostly affecting drama with a very strong performance from Reeves, who carries much of the film’s emotional weight.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

Some movies at the fest were exceptionally horny this year; two projects involving Olivia Wilde, The Invite and I Want Your Sex, were all about the pleasures and frictions of sexual expression. But the raunchy offering that worked best for me was David Wain’s silly and delightful tale of small-town hairdresser Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch), who sets out to even the scoreboard after her fiancé unexpectedly winds up using his celebrity “hall pass.” In her quest to track down and sleep with her celebrity crush, she picks up some new friends along the way, Wizard of Oz-style, including a paparazzi photographer (co-writer Ken Marino) and an overconfident, low-level employee at Creative Artists Agency (Ben Wang, the movie’s secret weapon). Jokes about Los Angeles and the cult of celebrity fly fast and free and fun cameos abound; look out for many of Wain’s frequent collaborators.

Filipiñana

Rafael Manuel’s feature debut is an incisive, slow-burning satire of capitalism and powerful men with far too much hubris — basically, a story for our times. It’s set almost entirely on a country club in the Philippines, where the shy and observant Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto) works as a tee girl and crosses paths with the club’s president Dr. Palanca (Teroy Guzman). Manuel’s visual eye is quirky and astute, with gorgeous shots of the pristine golf grounds and other amenities serving as the backdrop for far more sinister happenings.

Frank & Louis

Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan in Frank & Louis, directed by Petra Biondina Volpe.

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Prison dramas are tough to pull off without veering too heavily into stereotypes and trauma porn, but director Petra Biondina Volpe and co-writer Esther Bernstorff find a unique and profound way in here. Kingsley Ben-Adir plays Frank, who’s serving a life sentence but is coming up for parole. He takes a job caring for other inmates who are experiencing cognitive decline, and is assigned to the prickly and unpredictable Louis (Rob Morgan). The premise is familiar, but the execution is refreshing; the script frankly interrogates the thorny concept of punishment and redemption, and the excellent Ben-Adir and Morgan find humanity within their morally fraught characters.

Carousel

Rachel Lambert’s latest plays like a loving throwback to the intimate, adult romantic melodramas that were in abundant supply before the 2000s. Chris Pine (giving serious Robert Redford in The Way We Were energy) and Jenny Slate play former childhood friends and one-time romantic partners who reconnect after many years and attempt to make it work again. The chemistry between these two is off the charts, whether they’re tentatively yet tenderly falling into an embrace or arguing about each other’s flaws.

The Gallerist

Your mileage may vary with Cathy Yan’s artworld farce, but I had a great time with this, in which Natalie Portman plays a struggling gallery owner who attempts to sell a dead body “disguised” as part of a sculpture, during Art Basel Miami. The ensemble is stacked — Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Sterling K. Brown, just for starters — and they all seem to be having a blast. Layer in some commentary about art, commerce, and influencer culture (the increasingly ever-present Charli XCX also has a small role here), and there’s plenty here to take in.