WEINER
US, 2016, 96 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg.
There is plenty in this documentary to fascinate its audiences. The film has a solid reputation, winning awards, including Grand Jury Prize, Sundance 2016. It is a fly-on-the-wall documentary, access being allowed to the filmmakers to be present to the subject, Anthony Weiner, and his wife, Huma, allowed into their privacy, even intimacy. The director of the film previously served as a chief-of-staff to Anthony Weiner.
Anthony Weiner has been a politician, American, Jewish, married to an Arab, having a son – and with enormous potential for political success. However, audiences going into the film will know what happened to him, the sex scandals, his having to resign from the Senate, his 2013 campaign to be mayor of New York City and the new round of scandals which emerged, and his losing the election.
In the early part of the film there are several clips of his giving speeches in the American Congress, his role as a senator, the importance of financial aid to be given to veterans of wars and his impassioned pleas, challenging the opposition, ridiculing the stances of some politicians and engaging a great deal of media support.
He was also strong on communications, a locally personality, his lean look, his brashness, touches of narcissism, his relationship with his wife and son then the revelations about his sexual communications, photos, and the emergence of some kind of addiction – which led to television interviewers asking what was wrong with him.
there is a certain audience prurience and curiosity on the issue of the emergence of the photos, seeing them, wondering about them – and the effect that it would have on his wife. There was a great deal of media commentary, in the press, on television – and the comedians making a great deal of satiric fun at his expense.
The film spends a lot of time on his campaign to be elected mayor 2013, to overcome the previous scandals, to show himself as a sincere and honest politician, supported by his wife, an aide for Hillary Clinton – with the irony that Bill Clinton had presided over Anthony Weiner’s marriage to Huma (and the scandals attached to Bill Clinton).
Weiner’s supporters and campaign staff are shown to be young, enthusiastic, active. They are shown in action, in meetings, and strategy talks, for the causes that Weiner was supporting.
The new scandals are rather devastating on the morale of the campaign staff. This is compounded when there were revelations about the woman with whom Weiner was in contact in Las Vegas, Sydney Leathers, young woman, her sexual bravado, her interviews and her declaration about expectations of him, and media appearances, social media, and her trying to get into the hotel at the end of the election, not being allowed in – with information about her later career in adult films.
A great deal of the interest of the latter part of the film is looking at Weiner’s handling of the situation – in close-up, warts and all. Many of his staff are seen in meetings, trying to develop strategies. And then there are the television interviews – and asking “what’s wrong with you?”.
Of particular interest, is the portrait of Huma, her political savvy, the marriage, her pregnancy and birth, care for her son, the continued support of her husband – although looking less and less enthusiastic as the campaign goes on.
Nevertheless, Weiner continues to go out campaigning, meeting happily with supporters, kissing babies… However, it is an unexpected loud skirmish with a Jewish man, the confrontation in a shop, the man continuingly posing questions to Weiner and Weiner losing his cool, hitting back, insults, all for the onlooking journalists and their cameras.
Weiner loses the election, getting the lowest percentage vote. He goes to the hotel, decides to send his wife home instead of facing the waiting media. The directors have continued access in these dire situations, Weiner willing and self-centredly ruminating, Huma becoming more detached.
There is a postscript with Weiner and a photo opportunity with a young boy in the street realising who the celebrity is, getting excited, phoning home and wanting a photograph with Weiner - granted.
At the time of the film’s general release, August 2016, Huma and Anthony Weiner separated, a crucial time in Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the US presidency.
