Monday, January 23, 2017

Movie Review: "Weiner" (2016)

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Movie"Weiner"
Director: Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg
Year: 2016
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

A look into Anthony Weiner's run for mayor of New York City after his public sexting scandal. 

"Weiner" is a documentary directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg. It follows Anthony Weiner and his run for New York City mayor following his resignation from Congress after his sexting scandal hit the world wide web. His controversy captured the attention of the whole country because you the irony of a guy named Anthony Weiner getting in trouble for texting pictures of his weiner to some lady online is just too deep and too perfect to ignore. Despite that, Anthony pressed forward and decided to run for mayor, hoping the good people of NYC would rub off his faux pas and forgive him. All things considered, as far as scandals go, sending a dick pic and some dirty messages to a consenting partner doesn't rank that high on the list of messed up things politicians have done in the grand scheme of things. Of course, it's jacked up to say the least and absolutely abhorrent considering he is married and went behind his wife's back to talk to other women. It's even worse when you realize he often took photos of himself while his infant son was present. This was all, of course, before his latest scandal involving an underage girl came to light.

This is a documentary that started off as one thing and ended up another. At the beginning of filming, there was no way the filmmakers could have never known the things to come for Weiner. This starts out as what seems like a triumphant return for a once-disgraced congressman, thinking he could beat it and overcome his scandal...or at least that's what it was when he signed on to participate in the film. Weiner is shown as a no-nonsense candidate that speaks his mind with a brash attitude as he fights tooth and nail for what he believes in. He actually gained quite a good momentum early on in the race until a new scandal arose and everyone realized he's a big ol' dick. Another thing that really comes through here is the arrogance and self-centered nature of a politician like Weiner who ruined his career on his own with his own vices. It turns out, Weiner didn't learn from his mistakes and continued with his extramarital activities despite being caught with his pants down in the past.

We were absolutely enthralled by "Weiner," and we mean all of it. This is such an amazingly compelling documentary and unintentionally but extremely entertaining on top of it. Despite this being called "Weiner," the person who actually speaks the most in this documentary is Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife and aide to Hillary Clinton, though she mostly speaks non-verbally as she says it all in her facial expressions. Every minute she is on screen, you can see the struggle in her eyes as she tries her best and regularly fails to hide her constant disappointment in her little prick of a husband. She carries the look of a woman struggling to hold together a relationship that she knows deep down is doomed, one that people see as a farce. She is a politically powerful and influential woman who probably feels she has been made a fool of by her husband and his johnson time and time again. This is definitely a documentary that is worth peeping at some point.

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