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Weiner is a 2016 American fly on the wall documentary film by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg about Anthony Weiner’s campaign for Mayor of New York City during the 2013 mayoral election.

Synopsis
Given extraordinary access, the film follows Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin, during his 2013 campaign for New York City Mayor. The film opens with his time in Congress and his 2011 resignation after photos of his bulging underwear appeared on Twitter. The cameras begin rolling when Weiner announces he is running for Mayor in 2013. At first his campaign is going well, with many New Yorkers willing to give him a second chance as reflected in polls putting him at or near the top of a crowded field. Then news breaks of additional online sexual activity, including explicit text conversations with women that occurred well after his resignation from Congress. The mood of the campaign switches from exuberance to pain. Intimate views are captured of Weiner, his wife and his campaign staff struggling with the new revelations and the media firestorm that ensues. In only a couple of instances is the camera asked to leave the room.

People
People documented in the film include:
 * Anthony Weiner
 * Huma Abedin, his wife and a close aide to Hillary Clinton
 * Sydney Leathers, one of Weiner’s online sex partners, who attempts to confront him on election night

Though Weiner and Abedin are the film's main figures, many other prominent figures in the campaign were featured. The documentary also uses video clips from coverage of the campaign, including archival footage of Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Lawrence O'Donnell and Howard Stern.

Production
Weiner was produced by Anthony Weiner’s former chief of staff Josh Kriegman and his co-director Elyse Steinberg. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Kriegman revealed how the film came to exist: “I was Anthony's chief of staff for a couple of years while he was in Congress, and then I left politics and moved into filmmaking. He and I stayed in touch, and when he got caught up in his scandal and resigned [from Congress], Elyse and I immediately thought this story would be an amazing one to tell. So I started a conversation with him that lasted a couple of years, going back and forth about whether he would be comfortable with us filming. He seemed intrigued, but he was thinking about running for mayor, and we thought maybe he wouldn't go for it.

Then the morning that he announced he was running for mayor, in 2013, I got a text from him saying, "I'm in the race. I'm with my staff in my apartment. Do you want to come with a camera and film for this documentary?" I ran over with a camera and texted Elyse on the way and said, "It looks like he's going to let us make this." We were [shooting] from the day he announced he was running for mayor all the way through to the end of the election.”

The film has remarkable access behind the scenes of the campaign and to Weiner’s home life with his wife, Huma Abedin. When asked why they thought Weiner gave them so much access Steinberg said, "That’s a question we wondered about and that we posed directly to Anthony at the end of the film. He says that he wanted to be viewed as the full person he was and not as a punch line. That was certainly our intention going into this film. Anthony—and Huma—had both been reduced to caricatures and punch lines, and our hope was to show a more complex and nuanced portrait."

Critical reception
The film received near universal acclaim by critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 97% "certified fresh" rating based on 146 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Weiner uses sharp insight and untrammeled access to offer a portrait of a political and personal collapse that's as queasy as it is undeniably compelling." On Metacritic the film has a score of 84/100 based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Eric Kohn of IndieWire wrote Weiner is “mesmerizing… the best documentary about a political campaign ever made.” Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "Jaw-dropping... goes from being interesting to riveting, from 'Yes, this is quite good' to you-cannot-leave-your-seat-and-don't-even-want-to-blink." Owen Gleiberman reviewed the film for Variety writing, "Enthralling filmmaking... the most topical documentary since 'Fahrenheit 9/11.'" Writing for Rolling Stone, David Ehrlich said the film was "Hilarious, unsparing... Hardly just an opportunistic snapshot of a celebrity's public implosion, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg's inside look at the spectacular failure of Anthony Weiner's 2013 mayoral campaign in New York is one of the best documentaries ever made about a political scandal."

David Edelstein's review for Vulture said, "Weiner is a tabula rasa doc — one of the most provocative of its kind I’ve seen… What metaphor can do justice to Weiner? “Car crash” is too modest, “train wreck” too mundane. The Titanic seems most apt” In Vanity Fair, Jordan Hoffman wrote the film is, "fast, funny, insightful, and outrageous... one of the greatest campaign films ever made, non-fiction or otherwise." Lanre Bakare's review for The Guardian gave the film a perfect five stars calling it "an unsparing portrait of politics and a gift that keeps giving ... channels the spirit of the best and most surreal political journalism." Will Leitch reviewing for New Republic wrote, "The film takes us to a place we never thought any politician would let us see. One of the many miracles of Weiner... is that it is packed with holy-shit moments. It never stops making you gasp. There’s a moment... when Weiner looks at his wife, and she looks at him… You can watch years of political documentaries and never see a moment this intimate. Weiner has about ten more just like it."

Best of Lists

 * Buzzfeed 11 Best Movies of 2016
 * Esquire Top 10 Documentaries of 2016
 * The Hollywood Reporter - Critics' Picks: The 10 Best Documentaries of the year
 * The Huffington Post 21 Best Movies of 2016
 * IndieWire Best Movies of 2016
 * GQ Best Movies of 2016
 * Newsweek 21 Best Movies of 2016
 * Thrillist Best Documentaries of 2016

Subsequent Scandals and Controversy
Anthony Weiner's sexting continued after his failed Mayoral Campaign. In the summer of 2016 the New York Post released a story containing new messages and pictures sent with a woman through social media. The relationship began in late January 2015 and continued until summer 2016. When the story was about to break, his wife Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's closest aide, was busy on the campaign trail. Anthony Weiner informed her of the imminent Post story. Soon after the story broke, she publicly announced their separation.

Also in the summer of 2016, after the film was released, Weiner claimed that "Kriegman had assured him verbally and in emails that he would not use Abedin in the film without her consent", and that Abedin never granted permission for Kriegman to use the footage. When asked if he will sue the filmmakers, Weiner didn't give a definitive answer. The filmmakers disputed that any agreement had been breached, and said they "had consent from everyone who appears in the film."

In October 2016 Anthony Weiner once again reentered the national conversation when FBI director James Comey sent a letter to congress saying the bureau had reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. Previously in July, Comey had said under oath, that the FBI finished its investigation of Clinton's emails and recommended no criminal charges. The FBI found new pertinent emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop during an unrelated investigation of his texts with a 15 year old girl. The letter came 11 days before the presidential election. While Comey said "they appear to be pertinent", the FBI had yet to examine them adding, "we don't know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails." Sending the letter so close to the upcoming election was very controversial with people accusing the FBI of being politically motivated and anti-Clinton. Two days before the election, Comey said the FBI finished looking at the new emails and their previous recommendation of no criminal charges had not changed after finding no criminal wrongdoing. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the election and the FBI letter may have played a key role in her defeat. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told CNN Democrats "would have won the majority in the Senate and would have won the presidency but for Comey." "It's obvious he was a partisan in all this".