The prospect of devoting 89 minutes to Larry Nassar, disgraced Olympics doctor and long-term guest of our federal penitentiary system, offers about as much appeal as a recreational gum-scraping. In fact, everything about “At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal” suggests someone coming toward you with a spoonful of particularly ghastly medicine.

At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal Friday, 8 p.m., HBO

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But the benefits outweigh the few unsavory side effects of this largely first-rate documentary, a clangorous wake-up call about a career of sexual abuse that seems to have been too clumsy and/or obvious to have gone on for a week, much less 20 years. What it required was complicity. Which is exactly what makes the film so captivating. And, one hopes, unnerving.

To recap: For two decades, Nassar was team physician for USA Gymnastics, which oversees the Olympic and World Championship teams, while also practicing a similar brand of medicine at Michigan State University. During his tenures, he is accused of having molested hundreds of young gymnasts and dancers; he pleaded guilty to 10 assaults and is currently in a Florida prison.

How he got away with it for so long, and with so many victims, will be a puzzlement to many viewers, especially given his medical “techniques.” One involved what he called “vaginal adjustment,” which was just as intimate and unnecessary as it sounds, but which was largely accepted not only by his patients but, when they were aware of it, their parents.

We live in a political climate where expertise itself is under attack for all sorts of reasons, but “At the Heart of Gold” gives us the flip side. What can happen when authority goes unquestioned? To what absurd lengths can the public trust be exploited when the watchdogs are in on the crime? The answer is that a Larry Nassar can happen, especially when the price of bucking the system appears to be so high. And that lesson does much to counterbalance the unease, squeamishness and/or outrage a viewer might naturally feel as Nassar’s story unfolds.


The doctor is hardly the only culprit in director Erin Lee Carr’s film, which remains a gripping ride up to the point that it morphs into a PSA for the #MeToo movement. Till then, Ms. Carr scatters blame around like chalk dust. During the introduction to the film, one unseen witness says in voiceover, “I don’t know how anyone could not have known” about Nassar’s conduct. And of course someone had to, which is the crux of the story, on the margins of which lurk some of the more prominent people in the sport: The Karolyis, coaches Béla and Márta, whose gymnastics ranch was the site of many alleged abuses; John Geddert, a former coach and longtime associate of Nassar’s, who is suspected of having been aware of the crimes; Kathie Klages, an ex-MSU coach who was reportedly informed about Nassar’s predatory behavior as early as 1997; and Steve Penny, former president and CEO of USA Gymnastics, who has been charged with witness tampering for allegedly ordering the removal of documents from the Karolyi ranch. All have denied the accusations against them.

As “At the Heart of Gold” starts to wind up, it also begins to broaden its scope. But it’s curious where Ms. Carr chooses not to go, namely to other similar abuse scandals and to people with complicity problems—Kenneth Starr at Baylor, for instance, or Rep. Jim Jordan at Ohio State or Joe Paterno at Penn State, to name a few. Otherwise, it delivers a fascinating examination of the mechanics of serial sex abuse. Who, exactly, needed to be so silent, devious and/or sufficiently self-serving to allow Nassar to practice his warped brand of “sports medicine”?

Director Carr has a light touch with the victims she interviews, who don’t need any help expressing anger over their betrayals or, sadly, chagrin at their own naiveté. Once the narrative reaches their doctor’s undoing, though, the film shifts gears into pure advocacy, especially in the Michigan courtroom of Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who ultimately allowed 156 women to make victim statements and wears her indignation on her sleeve. Her approach was probably therapeutic for the women present, but it feels wildly indulgent and makes for less than serious television. It might even be bad strategy: The sight of the pathetic, quivering Nassar being subjected to one condemnation after another almost—almost—generates sympathy for the defendant. And a viewer might feel resentful just for being pushed in that direction.

—Dorothy Rabinowitz is on vacation.