Emotionally deep-frozen small town cop Sutherland travels to New York, acting as a private detective to delve into the disappearance of a friend.
The only lead is the vanished man's relationship with Jane Fonda, a struggling actress and call girl. Though structured as a mystery, this is more a study of alienation: the coldness of the detective, the disappointment of the hooker and the fanatical dementia of the killer.
Alan J. Pakula directs with an aptly chilly eye on blue steel and grey walls, favouring whirring tape recorders and silently lurking voyeurs. Sutherland's melancholy title character is constantly challenged and prodded into the background by Fonda's Oscar-winning turn, which takes centre stage until the film becomes more obsessed with probing the riddles of her personality than solving the fairly transparent mystery.