Klute Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov, July 8, 2019



What kind of party did you have in mind?

"Nothing one does is wrong -- let it all hang out." This statement is uttered early into the film by Jane Fonda's character, a semi-retired call girl named Bree Daniels, and is actually what eventually puts everything that occurs in it in the proper context.A small town in Pennsylvania. When industrial researcher Tom Gruneman (Robert Milli) goes missing in the Big Apple, his boss, Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi), hires clumsy private eye John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to figure out what has happened to him. Gruneman and Klute are old friends, so the latter already has plenty of valuable information to use during the search.Klute is handed a stack of explicit letters that Gruneman wrote to Daniels, and they promptly send him on his way to the Big Apple. Once in the city, Klute quickly tracks down the call girl and learns that she is trying to trade her dirty gigs for a legit acting career in the fashion industry. At first there is a lot of static between the two, but then they gradually warm up to each other and begin a romantic relationship.While trying to finish the job that he was hired to do, Klute reaches the very bottom of the call girl's sleazy world where pimps, drug dealers, and all kinds of other shady characters have learned to coexist in perfect harmony.This famous psychological thriller from Alan J. Pakula is still considered by many one of the quintessential films of the '70s, but it no longer feels like the courageous eye-opener that it once was. There is a good reason for this -- a lot of films that came after it went even further down its chosen path. (A great example is Paul Schrader's thriller Hardcore in which George C. Scott plays a small-time businessman from the Midwest who goes looking for his teenage daughter after he learns that she has gotten involved with some really creepy pornographers in California).The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the engineer is essentially a smart ruse that forces the audience to examine the evolving nature of Klute's relationship with the call girl from different angles and then begin contemplating entirely different themes and issues. For example, initially she manipulates Klute just as she does her clients, but then begins to question her 'performance' and with it the identity of the modern woman she aspires to be. There is plenty of food for thought here. One of the most interesting revelations is that her independence is just another gig, so when there is no one around her she no longer acts her part and reveals her true self.Klute of course is in the opposite corner, rationalizing his existence in an entirely different manner. Even though he isn't particularly good at what he gets paid to do he is a pragmatic thinker who sees everything that occurs around him as an ongoing cycle of action and reaction, which is why his mind is constantly searching to identify the correct logic that makes everything easier to deconstruct. This process, however, requires a lot of acting as well, so even though Klute emerges from a different environment at the end he is also profiled as a social performer juggling multiple personalities.Pakula worked with cinematographer Gordon Willis, who lit and lensed the film in a very particular way. There is a lot of soft noirish lighting and shadows that do many interesting things to capture the essence of the underground world that Klute visits while in the Big Apple.