Ain’t That America in New Documentary ‘Weiner’

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Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – It’s almost impossible to invent any punishment that former Congressman Anthony Weiner hasn’t inflicted upon himself. According to modern media, his indiscretions are the ultimate sin, but the media hacks are also the rock throwers in the glass houses. It’s all in the new doc, “Weiner.”

This is a document of Weiner’s 2013 run for Mayor of New York City – the seat that his Democratic rival, Bill DeBlasio, eventually secured. This was supposed to be Weiner’s second chance, after he had resigned from Congress after being “exposed” texting underwear pictures to female friends, all while married to former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. When his NYC campaign began, with his forgiving wife by his side, all seemed well, and the poll numbers were trending upward. Suddenly, another incident is revealed, and Weiner becomes a laughing stock. How that happens, and what happens afterward, are the guts of the documentary. It becomes a Kafka-esque nightmare for Weiner, the media and the information we receive during a campaign that is life affecting.

Anthony David Weiner was a golden boy. Born in 1964, he was the youngest person ever elected to New York City Council in 1991, at age 27. From there he went to Congress in New York’s 9th district, where he served seven terms from 1999 to 2011. He was a fast rising, politically ambitious progressive with a royal wife – political operative Huma Abedin. It was a strange obsession that brought him down, and would follow him thereafter.

Meet the Press: Anthony Weiner in ‘Weiner’
Photo credit: Sundance Selects

Weiner was involved in “sexting,” texts in which compromising pictures were exchanged with female friends, including one in his underwear. He was “exposed,” and the resulting firestorm ended with his resignation from Congress in 2011. Two years later, he wants to mount a comeback in the form of running for Mayor of New York City. What could possible go wrong?


Plenty, as it turns out. After going through several acts of contrition in association with his indiscretions, new allegations begin to surface just as his mayoral campaign is gaining momentum. The rest of the film follows Anthony Weiner as he tries to navigate through the thicket of a modern salacious and tabloid oriented press. What Bill Clinton had wrought, Weiner had taken to a new level.

This is such a human story, a tale of Weiner’s foibles and his ability to talk himself out of them on one hand, and the puritan silliness on how sex stories are treated in the modern media on the other hand. As Weiner himself notes, he lied to the press, he has a funny name and the media doesn’t do nuance. He has no one but himself to blame, and he has hurt his family – spouse Huma Abedin becomes a silent Greek Chorus just through her body language – but the media also has to hammer this home, as if they’re our maiden aunt tsk-tsking every moral weakness, without analyzing their own responsibility.

The film effectively paints Weiner as an Alice-through-the-looking-glass sad sack, and the film also implies his own culpability in his scandals. This is another instance – like the Watergate scandal – where the cover-up makes the crime that much worse. On his side, no one wants to talk publicly about their sexual peccadillos, but not revealing further sexting adventures before embarking on another campaign is almost psychotic, as if only the act of running for Mayor will clean the slate. His attempts to try to right the ship of the campaign takes on the painful mirth of low comedy.

Standing By? Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin in ‘Weiner’
Photo credit: Sundance Selects

The film is stupendously put together by directors Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg, who began the process with the angle of second chances, and ended up creating a multi-layered freak show of American politics and media. It is the modern reporting era, desperately searching for ratings and circulation, who wallow in the filth and lies of pathetic individuals, while slavishly prostituting themselves for ad dollars. When Weiner puts down MSNBC’s Laurence O’Donnell, there is a bit of satisfaction in the exchange, because O’Donnell keeps going there, even after Weiner answers his questions, and Weiner dismisses him. The media is an a-hole now, shoveling trivia while Rome burns.

Will Donald Trump get the same treatment as Weiner? He certainly has a similar checkered past, with three marriages and several indiscretions. Does indictment and shaming only happen to Democrats? That seems to be the rule of the media. They have smashed the glass houses with their stones, despite their own serious indulgences, and their hypocrisy is stunning. Anthony Weiner is no saint, but he ain’t the only sinner.

By PATRICK McDONALD Writer, Editorial Coordinator HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]