Weiner

Dir: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

2016

****

Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg's engaging fly-on-the-wall documentary following the 2013 Mayoral campaign of candidate and ex-congressman Anthony Weiner is the epitome of comedy meets tragedy. I had to remind myself that this was a real documentary and not a spoof, such as Ricky Gervais' The Office or Armando Iannucci's In the Thick of it. Anthony Weiner had a huge impact in a relatively short space of time in American politics. He was often seen shouting down political heavyweights on live TV and he gained huge popularity among the poorer and middle-class voters. However, in 2011 he was the face of scandal as pictures of his bulging manhood appeared on social media and he was found to have had sexual encounters with women via his mobile phone. The American media ridiculed him and his popularity plummeted. However, after a few years out to save his marriage and to have a child, Weiner bounced back and ran for Mayor in the 2013 elections. He started off really well too with polls suggesting his was way out in front. He addresses past mistakes from the outset and expected the scandal to shadow his campaign initially and when certain high-powered friends and news outlets suggested that politics should be everyone's main concern and that he hadn't actually cheated, abused, attacked anyone, things were certainly looking up. However, more pictures of Weiner's personals emerged and even though it was never made clear whether these were new pictures or old ones that didn't surface in 2011, his campaign took a devastating blow. Weiner's wife, the long suffering Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's vice chairman and 'other' daughter, supported her husband to a point but Kriegman and Steinberg's cameras picked up every single awkward encounter between the two and essentially filmed the beginning of the end of the couple. It is quite amazing how much access Weiner gave to the documentary film makers. It is clear that he thought that the only way to vilify himself was to be filmed 24/7 but is seemed he often forgot about the cameras. Or did he? There are times were you start to wonder whether he enjoyed being centre of attention more than being a politician but in the end control was his downfall. I actually had a lot of sympathy by the end of the film, given how utterly poisonous American politicians are and how obsessed the media are with the things that are actually least important. The most fascinating aspect of this documentary though is that you just can't tell what is what, who to believe and who to trust. Weiner has interesting politics but is a bit of a fool but it looks as if he has surrounded himself with incompetent advisors, who are far from top of the game. His own wife seems to have ditched him for Hillary Clinton's sake, which he probably had coming but I'm not sure he ever really deserved what he received. As the film's first scene suggests, sometimes you are victim of your name, no matter how hard you try to fight it. It is by far my favourite fly-on-the-wall documentary of recent times and rather unbelievably, it isn't Weiner who comes off worse in what is a film that is very hard to look away from, even when you feel you should.