hen small-town Pennsylvania research engineer Tom Gruneman (Robert Milli) suddenly vanishes, his wife is interrogated, during which it’s revealed that he exchanged lewd letters with a call girl in New York – not exactly uncommon, but certainly disappointing. Six months later, the FBI still hasn’t located the missing man, prompting his family and friends to hire private investigator – and Tom’s best friend – John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to dig deeper. He starts with the prostitute, Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), who aspires to be a model or actress, but since he doesn’t wield precise governmental power, she has no reason to cooperate. Nevertheless, she’s undoubtedly a central figure in Tom’s disappearance – and Klute is persistent.

From the opening sequence, in which characters talk over one another in a casual dinner setting, to Bree singing quietly to herself in her candlelit kitchen, there’s a remarkable sense of realism and ordinariness to the mise en scène, the dialogue, and the characters. The attention to minor details and natural interactions is astounding. It gets slightly eerier when Bree receives ominous phone calls in the middle of the night, introducing a significant piece of the plot, but the striking plainness still presides over every action. Personas observe and ruminate, or speak in lengthy monologues; everyone is so unhurried and seemingly offhand that it’s as if the entire script is improvised. And the camera works in the same way, often lingering on expressions and faces, ignoring conversations and sounds to allow viewers to guess at the innermost thoughts of those onscreen.

“You’re very square.” The main appeal here, however, is the acting. Fonda is exceptional in a vulnerable, edgy, nuanced, conflicted, mature, intermittently inscrutable, alternatingly manipulative and powerful and victimized role, thoroughly wrapped up in the part and entirely convincing for it. Despite her profession and the inclusions of drug use and frank, coarse language – staples of the seedy big-city underbelly depiction – Bree is intriguingly sympathetic, too. Interestingly, more time is spent dwelling on her performance than on the underlying mystery; for the bulk of the film, it’s a character study rather than a crime thriller, which continues to help with the hyper-realism and her personal complexity. And since it’s essentially a two-person show, Sutherland is also spot-on, remaining serious and stoic as the unwaveringly determined sleuth. He’s perpetually formal and stiff, with a premeditated manner – but, of course, that doesn’t stop him from taking part in a modest romance subplot (one that is unclear and unorthodox, yet comforting).

When the film does return to the overarching mystery – a psychological spellbinder more than a standard serial killer premise – it’s slow to reveal clues, even as it adopts a handful of horror movie aesthetics, including moments of silence before visual reveals, prickly music, the type of lighting that obscures haunting imagery lurking just outside of the screen, and subjects offset to an extreme to suggest something might unexpectedly lurch into the frame (the cinematography, boasting plenty of shadows, silhouettes, and repeated insert shots, is spectacular). The pacing is every so slightly off, despite the incredibly rich, engaging things unfolding; Fonda and Sutherland are a constant delight, even in extraneous minutes. In the end, regardless of the anticipated final confrontation and showdown (which is frighteningly subdued, then maniacal and chaotic), it’s evident that the baffling disappearance – which isn’t designed to be too unguessable – will stay in the background, favoring and ultimately ending on the two leads, their fruitless efforts to reshape one another, and their tragically unsustainable relationship.

– Mike Massie