Weiner

"Weiner" (2016 release; 96 min.) is a documentary about disgraced new York politician Anthony Weiner (pronounced: "wiener", not "whiner"). As the movie opens, we have Weiner in an interview chair, talking to the documentary makers. We then go back to 2011, when we get a thumbnail overview of how a sexting scandal led to his resignation from US Congress. We then shift to "May 13, 2013, two years after his resignation". Weiner is about to enter the race for New York Mayor, and along the way decided to give unlimited access to these documentary makers during his campaign. By then you are already nailed to your seat as you watch what is unfolding.

Couple of comments: this is the first full-length documentary for co-writer and directors Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg. While the comeback attempt in and of itself would've made for riveting viewing, can you imagine how they felt when smack in the middle of the unfolding campaign, another controversy explodes? It doesn't get any better than this for documentaries (on the same level as "The Armstrong Lie" about Lance Armstrong and "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" about Wilco). There are so many fine moments in this documentary, and I certainly don't want to spoil your viewing experience, but allow me to just point out two scenes: there is a very clever montage of Weiner's campaign taking a foothold and gaining track (to the point of leading the polls), set to the "Theme of S.W.A.T.", and it works beautifully. Even better is the scene between Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin when the second controversy explodes. Ah yes, the wife. Normal people like you and me immediately think: why on earth does she decide to stick by her man, time and again, humiliation upon humiliation? Then it dawns on me: these are not 'normal' people like you and me. Huma stays with Weiner the same reason Hillary stayed with Bill: it's all about the power! These career politicians know one thing, and one thing only: get the power, and stay in power, whatever means necessary, whatever personal sacrifice is needed along the way. When the final curtain comes down (Weiner obviously did not win the mayoral election), one of the directors asks Weiner "why did you let me film all this?". You'll just have to see for yourself how Weiner responds to this... Bottom line: if you like documentaries, you will absolutely love this riveting look at a disgraced politician whose narcissistic personality disorder is fully exposed here.

"Weiner" made a splash when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and I couldn't wait to see it. It finally opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The Saturday matinée screening where I saw this at was attended poorly, to my surprise. Maybe strong word-of-mouth (which this movie surely generates) will lead to wider exposure down the road through VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. Meanwhile, "Weiner" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

"The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of." Blaise Pascal

"Man, you're all full of **** anyway." Passerby on street

"Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh Heheheheheheh Weiner..." Beavis & Butt-head (probably)

I feel like these three quotes kind of sum up a lot of what this movie, Weiner, a documentary that chronicles as a harrowing, cringe-inducing tragedy of politician Anthony Weiner's failed bid for the 2013 Mayoral race in New York city, is going for, but only part of it. You can look at what the filmmakers present from different angles - as a portrait of a media that, due to how it operates (especially in New York city with the Daily News and Post and everything under the sun) in reporting the 'news' of this or that or the other with Weiner's sexting as "Carlos Danger", and how this media obsession perpetuates things further and further (technology itself is part of it - imagine what would've happened if things were only 10 or 15 years before this), or of course as a portrait of a man and his marriage which we see glimpses of in quiet looks and stares and things that the (mostly) fly-on-the-wall filmmakers get.

What you think about Weiner ahead of time may influence you going in. Or if you don't know much about him outside of the Daily Show and Colbert Report skits it may be educational in that way of recent/contemporary history. I think that the movie is fair in that it shows ALL the coverage - both the bytes in the various cable news coverage and things like Weiner's appearance on Lawrence O'Donnell where he was asked point blank "What's *wrong* with you?" - while showing Weiner in both the (semi good) early run-up when he started his campaign and, indeed, had a lead to start with, and then as he kept his composure much as he could while the second scandal blew up and wouldn't go away.

Could it have gone away? No, probably (or definitely) not, and the question of should or shouldn't he have dropped out of the race comes to mind. But the coverage of it all in this film is uncanny. At times you'll wonder how they got a camera in such a place, or how, up until the moment the filmmakers are told to get out of a room, they stay there until told to leave (or on the flip-side the very funny moment when in a car the director happens to ask a particular touchy question and Weiner can't help but go off on the guy, like "Is THIS what you mean by 'fly on the wall?') A lot of the humor that does come up is in that pitch-black, uncomfortable way that goes far beyond anything you'd ever see on Louie or Curb Your Enthusiasm. And the cringing isn't always funny - sometimes it comes down to the look two people have with nothing being said out loud and everything being said in the eyes.

One of the things that is hard to not come away with, whether by the end you feel some modicum of sympathy (or, hell, even empathy if that's possible) with Weiner from this period of time, is that he's not your average politician or, I should say, one that is the usual type we might think of as a politician. Usually they come off as stiff, bought and paid for or at the least handled to such a degree as to seem inhuman, or try to come off as "wholesome" and yet say the most monstrous things.

Weiner was/is a liberal, but you get someone who can talk in reasoned tones except when, well, things p*** him off (his entree into the spotlight came in his time as Congressman when he exclaimed "I will NOT yield" during a debate on a 9/11 responders bill), or when he is confronted by someone. We see him not back down from people, whether it's hard questions at a City Island campaign stop or a heckler in a deli. The guy is tough, and yet there's also a self-deprecating humor at times. And he'll even watch things like the O'Donnell clip - extended version online, of course - just to get motivated to start his day. What a pair of... oh, nevermind.

And yet at the same time what I love about the movie is that it shows that he can't escape, and really liked to be a part of, the whole 'game' of it, the act. When he does an ad for TV it feels like he's acting for the camera, and seeing the footage from this ad in its finished form intercut with his wife sitting by the side looking a mixture of bored and (maybe) frustrated is astonishing. It's difficult not to leave the movie with some judgment of him, and at the same time the trick of this is that it presents him in (as much as possible) the full, er, 'package' (sorry, puns are unavoidable, I tried). The point is if you like to see the nitty gritty political maneuvering and how a mind works in the midst of a scandal, this is a serious delight (both serious and delightful).

PS: Recently Weiner's retracted how he feels in the documentary and wishes he hadn't made the movie and won't watch it. The latter is fair, while the former is... well, who knows.

I really like the documentary because it does not editorialize. There is not one voice over in the whole thing. It is just Anthony Weiner ramping up his attempt to win the Democratic Mayoral primary, which in New York, is tantamount to winning the mayor's race since the city is overwhelmingly Democratic. Weiner had been the seven term liberal firebrand of a Democratic congressman from Brooklyn until a case of him sexting a woman along with pictures of his private parts came to light and caused him to resign in disgrace in 2011.

His campaign starts out with hope in the spring of 2013, but soon with his rise in the polls, more sexting by Weiner rises to the surface because he is in the limelight again. He tries to paper over it, and the documentary lets you see him trying to paper over it, by saying that he had already said he had problems in his marriage and that he had never said exactly when the sexting problem began and ended. This sounded too much like "it depends on what your definition of is is" from the Clinton years and he crashed and burned politically, winding up in the single digits on primary day.

This is no fluff piece. You see Weiner lose his temper, get involved in shouting matches with a guy in a Deli, and with Lawrence O'Donnell on liberal friendly MSNBC. Weiner thinks it makes him look like a fighter, instead it comes across as a refusal to face his problems. And as for his wife Huma Abadin, I just felt so sorry for her. Weiner must be surely suffering from an addiction if he is chasing after random women on the internet with such a smart sexy lady as his wife. After the more recent sexting comes to light, Huma never really says anything, but you can tell by her posture and look of indifference that she is likely mad as hell under that calm cool exterior. Worse, she is probably profoundly disappointed in someone who had regained her trust.

One particular scene said it all for me as to Weiner's self centeredness. When the additional sexting comes to light he tells Huma he wants her with him all day. Not because he is worried about her mental state or needs her emotional support, but because he is "afraid someone (the press) will get to her".

It's too bad that such a narcissist and sex addict was also rolled into the personality of somebody who seemed to genuinely care about average people, had an average upbringing so he knew where other people were coming from, and was willing to fight for what he thought was right. What a waste.

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner gets caught in a sexting scandal and resigns in June 2011. He decides to reenter politics by running for Mayor of New York. His campaign in the Democratic primary in 2013 starts to pick up speed when a second sexting scandal erupts. His wife Huma Abedin again comes to his side but the campaign flounders. Weiner is no doubt a compelling Shakespearian tragic figure. Once his scandal erupts again, this gets very uncomfortable at times. The central star becomes the mysterious Huma. In some respects, she's the Spinx holding back her secrets. In other respects, her looks could kill and she speaks volumes with her silence.

"I did a lot of things. But I did a lot of other things, too." Anthony Weiner

The tragicomic story of seven-term congressman from New York, Anthony Weiner, is almost too absurd to be true. After resigning from Congress over sexting, while waging a vigorous 2013 campaign for mayor of NYC, Weiner is disclosed to have texted again visions of his maleness to other women than his wife, Huma Abedin. The tragedy is that this aide to then Senator Hillary Clinton is an accomplished woman, totally undeserving the abject humiliation her husband's sexting has caused her.

Filmmakers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg in this fascinating doc called Weiner gained permission from him to film his most intimate moments of the campaign, especially with his wife while his tech-straying disgrace is made public. While for us commoners, such peccadilloes amount to little in a public forum (but much, of course, in the personal arena), these moments are heart-rending to see: This accomplished wife forces herself, with barely a smile, to support her husband.

The ancient Greeks knew well the flaws and foibles of celebrities gone wild. In this revelation of hubris, an overweening pride that comes before the fall, even the tragedians might not have dared to show the Congressman sexting even after his initial exposure (so to speak). Yes, he sends photos of his masculinity to a 22 year old woman, who will complete his ignominy by revealing them to a press overjoyed at a second round.

The despair is that he had seemingly come back into the good graces of the public, only to be outed again and lose that support and the mayoral primary to Bill DeBlasio. The documentary is there for the grand moments of revelation and shame, none more poignant than privately with his wife, who seems almost shell-shocked by the new revelation.

Unfortunately, the quotes at the beginning of this review are the most insight we ever get, despite the filmmakers' intimacy, to help us understand why such a gifted populist should so carelessly toss away his position and reputation. Perhaps his wife's mute incredulity stands for our own.

In the end we must conclude with a saying never more appropriate than here: "Who knows the secrets of the human heart?"