Klute is a 1971 American neo-noir psychological thriller[3][4] film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula and starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Nathan George, Dorothy Tristan, Roy Scheider and Rita Gam.

Its plot follows a high-priced New York City call girl who assists a detective from Pennsylvania in solving the missing person case of a john who may be stalking her.

Bree appears to enjoy the freedom of freelancing as a call girl while auditioning for acting and modeling jobs, but she reveals the emptiness of her life to her psychiatrist.

Klute and Bree develop a romance, although she tells her psychiatrist that she wishes their relationship would end because she felt more in control of herself when turning tricks.

A voiceover conversation with her psychiatrist reveals her hesitancy to surrender her life of autonomy to enter into a traditional relationship with Klute, saying that she would lose her mind if she turned to a domestic lifestyle.

In addition, future Emmy, Golden Globe and Academy Award winning / nominated actors Jean Stapleton (credited) and Sylvester Stallone (uncredited extra) appear in the film.

[7] She writes that the film's recurrent use of audio tapes as both "visual and aural themes ... presciently evoke the paranoia of the Watergate era.

[6][7] Scott Tobias of The Guardian noted that while the film "doesn't have the conspiratorial flavor of Pakula's more political films, Klute approaches the genre with the same creepy ambience, with camera angles that suggest surveillance, and an excellent score, by Michael Small, that would seem more suited to horror, with its jangling of keys on the far end of a piano.

"[10] Andy Lewis, a writer who had primarily worked in television, developed the screenplay for Klute with the goal of wanting to transition into feature films.

[11] His initial inspiration for the screenplay originated from a serial story he had read as a child in The Saturday Evening Post about a man from the country who ventures into the city in an attempt to solve the murder of his brother who was killed there in an empty lot.

[12] At the time, Fonda had attracted significant scrutiny for her activism against the Vietnam War,[10] and much of the publicity surrounding the film made note of this.

To overcome her doubts that she could play such a role, Fonda turned to her memories of several call girls whom she had known while living in France, all of whom worked for the famed Madame Claude.

[17] Sutherland later admitted that he clashed with Pakula during the production, commenting that it "was a film where the director had a specific idea, which I didn't particularly understand, nor was I particularly interested in.

"[13] Roy Scheider was cast as Bree's pimp, Frank Ligourin, a role that brought him significant attention and notably furthered his career.

[22] Actor Sutherland, reflecting on the film, commented that, "there were a lot of things in Klute that didn't make any sense in terms of movies.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Donald Sutherland is coolly commanding and Jane Fonda a force of nature in Klute, a cuttingly intelligent thriller that generates its most agonizing tension from its stars' repartee.

[27] The Los Angeles Times's Charles Champlin praised Fonda and Sutherland's performances, summarizing: "Klute is visually stunning, full of surprises, bewildering and suspenseful, faultless in its timing... Like the best mysteries always, Klute offers more than its diversions and redeems its sordid materials by understanding them and finding them worth pity, not amusement.

"[28] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded Klute 3.5 stars out of a possible 4, writing that while the thriller elements were poorly executed, the performances of Sutherland and especially Fonda carried the film.

Director Alan Pakula's... crisply edited movie runs too long only in drawing out its conclusion….Sharp eyes will solve the mystery midway thru the film.

The film unfolds on several levels, the description of the call girl, the struggle for her growth, the relationship of Klute and Bree, and the mystery theme.

"[31] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times, in one of the few negative reviews, wrote, "Pakula, when he is not indulging in subjective camera, strives to give his film the look of structural geometry, but despite the sharp edges and dramatic spaces and cinema presence out of Citizen Kane it all suggests a tepid, rather tasteless mush.