The first of two Oscars (out of a total of 7 nominations in the space of 17 years between 1970 and 1987) was won by the famous American actress Jane Fonda for her role as a New York prostitute who helps a private detective solve the case of a missing person. From today’s perspective, “Klute” seems like a typical American thriller outgrowth of the seventies, when realism had long since replaced the somewhat fairy-tale depictions of a decade or more earlier. This film is also considered the first part of Alan J. Pakula’s informal “paranoia trilogy”, which continued with “The Parallax View” from 1974, and concluded with his most famous film, “All the President’s Men” in 1976.
Jane Fonda is Bree Daniels, an expensive New York prostitute who works as a freelancer and doesn’t have a pimp, which was a rarity for New York at the time. She hopes to break through as an actress, although it is clear to us that this is already self-delusion for her, since she has already passed her thirties and is aware that her chances are slim. Fondina Bree is a cynical person, an intelligent woman who has already become numb to her lifestyle and is a person who feels absolutely nothing. She does what she does professionally, and in the conversation with the psychiatrist she reveals that she feels a kind of pride when she realizes that she has satisfied the client and fulfilled all his fantasies. However, it is clear to us that some of her clients have rather perverse and sick fantasies. All of this, of course, is paid extra, and it seems that one of Bree’s clients was Pennsylvania family man Tom Gruneman, a clerk in the chemical industry in the small town where he lives.
He disappeared, and the only clue the police found was a “dirty” letter sent to Brea from Gruneman’s office. After half a year of police doing nothing, the director of Gruneman’s company hires their mutual friend and local detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to investigate the disappearance. Of course, Klute’s investigation will very quickly lead to Brea, who will initially refuse to cooperate with the detective, but will soon become his guide through the New York underworld of prostitution, pimping, and crime. Although by the end the story will become relatively predictable, what “Klute” is still above average are the great and convincing acting performances, especially Fonda, but also Sutherland is there in a completely correct form.