KLUTE (1971) *** The not-entirely-happy-hooker stays home. All-star anti-Vietnam War pairing of Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland proves that they're equally observant about events a bit closer to home. Jane as a hooker, no surprise, we all knew she had it in her after Barbarella, but where did Sutherland learn to act square like that? Maybe he just pretended he had a bad hangover, or something. The story doesn't reveal much, and when it finally reveals anything just about the entire gig is obvious, but it's somehow not so much of a problem (life's often like that anyway, just movies aren't supposed to be); not with the exceptional performances from the leads, Alan J. Pakula's tasteful photographic dressings, Roy Scheider's credibly nauseating and smooth badass pimp, and the devout and bitter honesty of the thing. It may only be 1971 but the principals are turning the corner and nothing is glamourized; not sex with strangers, not violence, not parties, not the hypocrisy of the monied business classes and definitely not heroin. Glamour is replaced with reality, incredibly sad realily by Dorothy Tristan with only a few lines but we couldn't bear more. Talking about hookers, who was it that said that most psychiatrists are just being paid to act like non-judgmental friends?