WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY
[CHACUN CHERCHE SON CHAT]
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
Paris. The present. Chloe, (Garance Clavel), a young woman, is fed up with her life which seems to be at a standstill. She lives with a jet-black cat she calls Gris-Gris, even if it does mean "grey-grey", and with Michel (Olivier Py) who is gay. To get away from it all, she takes off on a vacation by the sea but not before insuring someone reliable will take care of her cat. She finds her in the person of Mme. Renee (Renee Le Calm) who is a bit batty and who has many of her own cats.
While ostensibly about a lost cat, that thread is only to tell the story of an ever- changing Paris, here personified in Chloe and the many people with whom she comes in contact when on her return from her vacation she learns that Gris-Gris has disappeared . . . wandered off. Mme. Renee has called on everyone she knows to help in the search. One of the volunteers in the search is a young Arab, Djamel (Zinedine Soualem) who has a somewhat diminished I.Q. but makes up for it in his crush on Chloe and devotion to the search.
Everyone joins in the hunt: Mme. Renee's elderly friends; a long-haired drummer, (Romain Duris) who seems to oddly show up wherever Chloe just happens to be; and Carlos, (Simon Abkarian) the neighborhood know-it-all.
Just as Paris is changing, adapting to the new ethnic groups now found in every country, trying to deal with the new youth and their lifestyles as well as the elderly who still reside where they always have. . . . so, too, is Chloe adapting and finding out about her life and which way she ought to go and how to deal with her loneliness.
The film moves quickly with no wasted effort, much of it in an improvisational manner by the writer/director. Although actress Garance Clavel has had little film experience she was chosen for the role because she exuded both fragility and the toughness necessary to survive. Renee Le Calm plays herself as do those in some of the smaller roles for which the director chose non-actors. All in all an enjoyable film.
Written and Directed by Cedric Klapisch
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Ben Hoffman
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