Movie #: 801 Title: KLUTE 1971

Rating: 8.60

Director (last): Pakula (first): Alan

Writer (last): Lewis (first): Andy

Striking and memorable drama about an intelligent prostitute, Bree Daniels, (Jane Fonda) who is the only link to a missing businessman being sought by a private detective, John Klute (Donald Sutherland). Klute, from a small town, is not intimidated by the sophistication and danger of the big city, and he gradually wins Bree's trust in his determination to solve the case. In voice-overs and sessions with her psychiatrist, we get Bree's angle on events, and it is the most intriguing element of the film. Bree is ambivalent about her "work", but she likes being in control, and she sees men at their basest and ugliest. She sees what she believes is the truth about men: that they are completely vulnerable to their own strange desires. But what does she want? She doesn't know. When she begins to feel attracted to Klute, she simultaneously desires to sabotage the relationship, to withdraw from him. If you don't care, you can't be hurt. She is shocked at Klute's incorruptibility: he is the first man she has known who couldn't be easily manipulated sexually. Early in the picture, when she still thinks of him as a country bumpkin, she asks him what he thinks about her associates and herself, and the sophisticated life-style of the big city. He tells her she and her friends are pathetic, and she is surprised to be stung by his put-down. Bree makes it her challenge to corrupt him, to prove that he is really the same as the other men she knows. This is easily Fonda's best performance ever. Rarely has any actress so completely inhabited such an intriguing role. Powerful, brilliant, haunting film. Kael calls Bree one of the strongest roles for women ever. The ending is Hollywood but it's not what you will remember about this film. A christian website discussed the film in terms of dramatizing the exploitation of women. That's a bit like saying "Apocalypse Now" is about helicopters. At the center of "Klute" is Bree Daniels talking at length about how she, as a woman, empowers herself by manipulating men's desires. I suppose in a perverse way that affirms that women have no other avenues for controlling their own lives-- other than prostitution. But Bree is psychologically complex. She never proffers her life as an escort as an alternative to a career in, for example, plastics. Her other avocations are to be a model or actress. If you told her, you are being oppressed by men, I suspect she would laugh.

Is this movie a "gem"? No

Evil Twin: Gone Girl

Good Twin: Gone Girl

 

Added: 1990-01-01 [yyyy-mm-dd]