David Thomson

"The first thing to ask about this ravishing film is, why is it called Klute?.... [T]his is truly a film about Bree and about the several ways in which being a psychiatric patient (talking about oneself), being a hooker (acting out), and being an actress (acting in) are overlapping or in a rhyme scheme. And the triumph of the film is the intelligence and the appetite with which Jane Fonda falls upon it. That she won the Oscar goes without saying, but this is one of the best movie studies of performance. The delicacy with which Fonda balances the story of Bree and the larger implications is exemplary. No wonder Sutherland seems so numb watching her--she was a sight to behold...."

David Thomson, Have You Seen...? A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films (2008), p. 444