The available reviews lean towards approval, with Jane Fonda’s performance the clearest point of agreement, even among the dissenters. Critics repeatedly place her at the centre of the film, praising her control and complexity, while the more favourable accounts value its study of loneliness and alienation. Praise also gathers around the atmosphere, particularly Gordon Willis’s cinematography and Pakula’s chilly direction, which give the thriller its unease.
The reservations concern the mystery: several critics find it transparent, implausible or dependent on familiar murder-mystery conventions. For Slant Magazine, those weaknesses do little to diminish the force of the character study; Variety, by contrast, finds the film tedious and short of suspense, with Fonda its only rewarding element. The spread is wide, then, despite the agreement about its lead performance. Limited accessible text for some reviews makes the middle ground harder to characterise precisely.