150 Word Review: 'Klute' (1971)
Death becomes her
Klute is a slow-and-steady thriller about a small-town gumshoe who journeys into the lower depths of 1970s New York City to investigate the disappearance of a friend.
This is the late Donald Sutherland at his most subdued as the title character, John Klute, a natural-born narc whose moral code morphs once he meets Bree, a hard-working sex worker played by Jane Fonda. Fonda won an Oscar for her compassionate performance, and it's obvious why: she's charismatic and cerebral as Bree, a struggling actor who complains to her therapist that she can't afford therapy. Her character is both a stereotype and a three-dimensional human being.
Director Alan J. Pakula's underworld is appropriately hopeless—no one cares about dead call girls. But there is still hope—Klute suggests that the cultural divisions of the Vietnam era can be healed, that a square and a flower child can find common causes and connections.
More Pakula: ‘All The President’s Men’ (1976)
