I was in my 20s when I saw Klute. It was probably run late at night on channel 4 and I remember then thinking it was a class act.
I revisited it today at The Storyhouse and I was even more impressed with this new noir 1971 thriller which broke the mould by concentrating on the characterisation of its main female protagonist rather than the reveal of who was the serial killer.
Jane Fonda excels as the call girl Bree Daniels, a bright, intelligent woman who clearly understands her motivations in life. Through some revealing monologues with her pragmatic psychiatrist we see Bree take control of her call girl life where mysogyny and sexism controls her acting life. This existence is suddenly complicated by the appearance of a strong, and passive private detective ( a doe eyed Donald Sutherland) who is investigating the disappearance of one of Bree’s supposid tricks and Bree has to confront proper and normal emotional attachment as they embark on a tentative and somewhat complicated relationship.
Director Alan J Pakula concentrates the camera on Fonda at almost every turn and she replays his trust with a nuanced and devastating intelligent performance.
She’s a revelation, she really is and although the movie is essentially a character study of a woman in the sex industry , the film works very well as a creepy, serial killer thriller, but this objective is incidental to the main narrative .
If you haven’t seen it, please give it a go.
I’ll leave you all with this hilarious drag performance of let it go from Frozen
It has nothing to do with Klute
But it did make me titter
from Going Gently https://ift.tt/3n0jPcK