Narcissim? Masochism? Dreams of redemption?  Whatever may have motivated fallen congressman Anthony Weiner to let filmmakers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg make a documentary about his 2013 run for mayor of New York City, it’s hard not to ponder this mystery while watching Weiner. So when Kriegman asks his subject, "Why have you let me film this?" he also speaks for the head-scratching viewer.

The question comes up the day after the Democratic mayoral primary, which Weiner lost with a withering 4.9 percent of the vote. That wasn’t the outcome the filmmakers were anticipating when they mounted the project. They could be excused for thinking that Weiner’s infectious passion, progressive policies and supporter base might get him back in the game two years after he left politics amid a highly public sexting scandal. “I'm back, back in the New York groove!” rocks the Ace Frehley cover that overlays the opening montage of Weiner’s downfall and determined campaign.

The plot twist that no one saw coming was the candidate’s recidivism. When it came out that he was back to tweeting selfies of his private parts, his campaign was in full gear, and the media had a field day. What the film delivers that the news establishments didn’t is a ring-side seat at work and at home, thanks to Kriegman’s previous stint as Weiner’s district office chief of staff.

Not only do we gain privileged access to the subject, but as part of the deal we also become acquainted with his wife, trusty Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. It’s here that the film’s second most urgent question presents itself: why would this obviously talented and with-it dynamo submit to the role of abused woman? If at first we buy that love trumps all, as the fallout piles up, it’s all we can do to keep from yelling “run!” with each passing shot of her deer-in-the-headlight eyes and defensively folded arms.

Compounding the tragedy is Weiner's notion that his mayoral bid was for Abedin’s sake to begin with. "She was very eager to get back to the life I took from her," he says in the film. Instead, he gives her reasons to cringe. Take for example his performance on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC talk show, an embarrassment of spectacular proportions which he later laughs off with manic denial while Abedin finds it too painful to stay and watch. Not that scrappy, impulsive Weiner is oblivious to his character flaws. “I have this virtually unlimited ability to fuck up things day by day,” he concedes.

As things go from bad to worse, the would-be First Lady of New York City faces mounting tensions between her marriage and career. She informs Weiner that she won’t be participating in one of his last campaign ads, and she’s advised by Clinton strategist Philippe Reines to sit out Election Day balloting. But the humiliated wife needs no guidance on whether to face “Pineapple.” That’s the code name for Sydney Leathers, the implacable recipient of Weiner’s online indescretions who ultimately stalks campaign headquarters and the very spot where he’s to give his concession speech. Editor Eli Despres gives us an escape scene to remember -- McDonalds, anyone? -- though it’s not a pretty sight.

The achievement of the film is to track, with each fresh news round, Weiner’s latest spiral of combustion and how it goes down both in public and behind closed doors. It’s a fine bit of verité, but did we need each rinse-and-repeat cycle? We can’t help wondering whether the filmmakers’ strategy is to parody the debauched ecosystem of political spectacle and media exploitation and to smirk, however gamely, at our bottomless appetite for trainwrecks. Weiner himself calls out the forces at play. “The laws of entertainment gravity will suck the documentary into the same vortex,” he presciently laments. Weiner is an engaging current events primer that takes a page from the very rulebook it exposes.   

Weiner is a selection of the 2016 New Directors/New Films festival presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art.