On Thursday at the Whitney Humanities Center, I was among a group of dozens of Yalies and New Haveners to catch a screening of Weiner, perhaps 2016’s hottest documentary. Weiner is a Sundance-premiering fly-on-the-wall political doc that follows former US Congressman, and amateur photographer, Anthony Weiner (D-NY) on his quixotic bid for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City in 2013. Through the lens of CSPAN, cable news, and the nightly shows, we are shown Weiner’s rise as a firebrand prosecutor of Republicans on the House floor, with Weiner famously refusing to yield while criticizing GOP obstruction of a 9/11 bill. With this notoriety, Weiner gained some admirers on social media, and his problems arose once he began to chat back with them. One of these correspondences, an unsavory photo, was accidentally tweeted by the Congressman. After denying that the photo was him, he eventually came clean and resigned from Congress in 2011. The documentary picks up when Weiner announces his 2013 mayoral bid and continues on to Weiner’s not-so-stunning loss on election night. Among the many things that are unique about this documentary is the nearly complete access that the filmmakers had to Weiner, his campaign staff, and his wife and Clinton confidante Huma Abedin. With this access, we see not only the trials and tribulations of a damaged politician trying to regain the trust of voters, but of a damaged husband trying to regain the trust of his wife. Any of the trust which he might have regained was shattered with the revelation of a second sexting scandal. At this point in the film, we an almost seemingly scripted look into a campaign in crisis mode. We are shown tense moments of staffers questioning whether or not they can trust Weiner and deep uncertainty about their strategy going forward. Weiner decides to continue his campaign and the camera captures each minute of the candidate’s further demise, his weariness showing in his short-tempered interactions with New York voters. It’s hard for me to choose a favorite aspect of Weiner; from the minimalist cinematography, to the minutiae of a struggling campaign, to the emotional tension between Weiner and his wife, viewers of this documentary are taken on a humorous and absurd journey from rise to fall to rise and fall again. Producers Elyse Steinberg and Josh Kriegman ’03 craft a wonderful political documentary that sometimes feels more like a comedy. A question that remained in the back of my mind throughout the film was, “Why would Anthony Weiner let them do this?” The documentary doesn’t editorialize or try to make Weiner look bad, he does that all himself. It just presents the facts and the behind-the- scenes aspects of the campaign and Weiner’s personal life. I recommend Weiner to politicos and non-politicos alike.
