To me, this movie is perfection.

Purely Joyful Movie!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Some documentaries manage to shock me because of how outlandish they become, and "Wiener" is one of those documentaries. It's about a complicated and controversial political figure, the notorious "sexter" Anthony Wiener whose campaign plummeted due to an awfully funny scandal. The documentary follows his quest for a second chance and the awkward, hysterical madness that ensues.Whether you like or dislike Wiener or his political beliefs and connections is totally irrelevant, because this film is not focused around that, and it remains pretty unbiased throughout. Wiener's personal life doesn't shock me or enrage me as much as it amuses me, he comes across as more of a classically Jewish comedian rather than some grand political figure in this movie. His politics, themselves, are mostly mixed in my opinion, and his passion is certainly there, but his connections to the dreadful Clintons and the information that came out against him AFTER the release of this film make me shy away from supporting him in any way. However, the media manages to be so obnoxious and cruel that, while watching this film, I couldn't help but side with Wiener on some more personal issues. A candidate's private affairs should not judge whether or not they're a good candidate. Kennedy had affairs, but he was still an excellent president (and, quite possibly, one of the 5 or less ONLY excellent presidents the United States has ever had), making the media's manipulation of entirely private matters pointless in my view.Sorry for going on a quick political tirade just then, because, as I have already stated, this isn't really much of a political film. It is mostly just a tense and enjoyable comedy of bizarre, but totally truthful, proportions.

'WEINER': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)The critically acclaimed documentary about Anthony Weiner's troubled political campaign for Mayor of New York City, in 2013. The movie was directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg. It not only received nearly unanimous positive reviews from critics, but it was also nominated for dozens of prestigious awards (and it made multiple critics' year end top 10 lists). I think it deserves all of the acclaim it's been given.The film begins in 2011, when Anthony Weiner was forced to resign from Congress; due to inappropriate photos of him in his underwear surfacing online (that he had previously sent to multiple women). The film then covers his reemergence in politics, in 2013, when he ran for Mayor of New York City (in the Democratic Party primary). The filmmakers follow him, and his wife Huma Abedin, as things first went really well for them (in the campaign). Then the couple was forced to deal with more accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct (by Weiner). This also (of course) caused severe trouble for the campaign.The movie is cringeworthy to watch, a lot of the time, but (for me at least) I couldn't look away either. It's so bizarrely fascinating, and extremely insightful. The filmmakers managed to get an incredibly intimate look into the personal life of Anthony Weiner; and he claims that they didn't have permission to use video of his wife. The film wouldn't have been nearly as insightful, or intimate, if they hadn't used it though. It's a documentary masterpiece, just about as good as they get (in my opinion)!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://youtu.be/mFAp0zxR-lY

I thought this was a very well-done documentary and it's very timely now with our recent election. Anthony Weiner's entire career derailed because he sent explicit photos (to consenting women, I might add). Kind of ironic given the things that our current president has said on record and been accused of doing.When all of this originally occurred, it was such a huge blow-up and I didn't watch a lot about it, but I was under the impression that he did all of it while misusing political time or dollars or something since resigned. No, he did it on his private time. That might make him a bad husband or it might make him not very smart when it comes to social media, but it doesn't change his political views or platforms.So that's what interesting about watching this train wreck. It's the fall from grace of a man who didn't do anything worse than the bad behavior or past and current presidents (e.g. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump). His private life and poor reasoning destroyed his public persona. It's fascinating to get inside his attempt to rise in politics again, seeing the campaign strategy, his remorse (or lack of), and his wife's position on it. Fascinating, but kind of sad.

For those who are familiar with the political campaign and the main subject of the film, nothing that is a huge revelation is discovered. What the documentary definitely does a great job of is simply letting us having a first-person access to the behind-the-scenes footage and events that went on in this trainwreck of a political campaign and arc. Weiner is a very interesting political figure as well as a very entertaining person, and so the documentary doesn't have to do a whole lot to become a fascinating watch about politics and the media. I definitely recommend this to any documentary lover and to anyone really interested in the effects of the media.