3 Docs to Watch For: A Disgraced Governor, the Hot Bard of New Jersey and Steamy Mormon Sex

Whenever I sit down to watch an Alex Gibney documentary, I feel a twinge of anxiety -- not because Gibney's work isn't usually great (it is), but because I know he's going to present me with massive doses of information that, even though arranged in neatly organized packets, will take a great deal of concentration to process. And that's certainly true of Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, which offers exactly what it promises: A detailed examination of the ambitious ascent and ultimate toppling of the 54th governor of New York State.

But what's surprising, and great, about the film is how sympathetic it is: While there's certainly hypocrisy in the fact that before his own decline Spitzer helped the FBI and the NYPD bring down a prostitution ring, the "crime" that ultimately sank his career -- paying for sex -- is minor in comparison to the foibles of plenty of other politicians. And although Gibney very slyly declines to spell it out, there's barely a doubt that the Wall Street hotshots whose recklessness Spitzer exposed had at least something to do with exposing his illicit, ill-advised actions.

The first half of Client 9 is a portrait of an aggressive, prickly guy who, no matter what mistakes he'd go on to make in his personal life, also comes off as blazingly intelligent and staunchly principled. Gibney, in his characteristically methodical fashion, maps the breadth of Spitzer's achievements and embarrassments as if he were building a vast, detailed landscape for a model train. Long before the economy crashed, Spitzer trained his alert, pitbull eyes on corruption at Merrill Lynch, Bank of America and AIG, and he went for the jugular. But he wasn't necessarily easy to work with or for, and he was dogged by controversy even before he was caught with his hand in the proverbial honeypot, most significantly the "Troopergate" scandal.

But Gibney really gets cooking in the second half of Client 9, which features some fascinating material gleaned from one of the call girls Spitzer spent time with, a woman code-named "Angelina." In the early days of the scandal, an escort named Ashley Dupre emerged as Spitzer's alleged favorite, and she lost no time in spinning her notoriety into gold. But Gibney reveals that Spitzer saw Dupre only once. Angelina was the woman he saw more frequently, and though she agreed to speak with Gibney, she refused to appear before the camera. Gibney hired an actress to play Angelina, using the transcript of Gibney's interviews with her as the script.

Angelina comes off as an intelligent, discreet woman who realized she had no choice but to cooperate with the FBI, although she refused to provide them with information she deemed irrelevant. When FBI agents asked her if Spitzer liked any particular sex toys, she says she told them that that couldn't possibly have anything to do with their investigation. And on-camera she tells us that no, he didn't. While she doesn't overtly protect or exonerate Spitzer, her words make it clear that she thinks what happened to him, and not what he did, is the real disgrace.

The conclusion that Gibney gradually but succinctly works toward is that Spitzer certainly did make mistakes. But Gibney also stresses that Spitzer's chief transgression -- basically, the guy had sex -- is a crime against his wife and family, not against the state. I found Spitzer's on-camera interview footage extremely touching: He's wholly comfortable, a little jovial, even, when he's talking about the ungodly behavior he saw in the financial sector, and about how he felt it was his duty to blow the lid off it. But when he talks about sex, he's awkward and businesslike, particularly when he explains (and I'm paraphrasing, using many more words than he did) that he chose to avail himself of an escort service rather than become involved in an affair that might lead to a deeper emotional entanglement. The latter, he had concluded in his lawyer-like way, would be far more damaging to his family.

Some may not see that as common sense or wise judgment. But when it comes to sex, who among us can claim a spotless record of wise judgment? Client 9 is edifying, fascinating, and in the end, more than a little heartbreaking. As a public figure, Eliot Spitzer is a stiff, brainy, unsexy guy. And like the rest of us mere mortals, he probably wishes to be a very different self in his most private moments.

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