WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Some movies are not what they seem to be. WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY (CHACUN CHERCHE SON CHAT) is one such film. Although on the surface it is a mystery about the search for a lost feline, in reality, it has only marginal sympathy for the missing animal. The story, written and directed by Cedric Klapisch, uses the disappearance as a ruse to take the viewers on a neighborhood tour of Paris.
Klapisch's storytelling style borrows heavily from the great Eric Rohmer, whose last picture released in the United States was the beautiful, episodic RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS. Klapisch has mastered the form of a Rohmer film, but lacks Rohmer's gift for the narrative. Klapisch's plot has the same wide variety of characters, but Rohmer's are more compelling.
As the story starts, a young Parisian named Chloe has a predicament. She is going on vacation and needs someone to look after her cat, Gris-Gris, while she is away. Garance Clavel plays Chloe with such big, soulful eyes that it is hard to see how anyone would turn her down.
Chloe lives in the apartment of a gay man named Michel, played rather insufferably by Olivier Py. Although Michel claims to be her friend, he says she should just put the cat in a bag and abandon it somewhere. (In a film nominally about cats there are several such cruel references to them.) Michel will do nothing to help the animal that has been living under his roof.
Chloe finds an old woman who keeps cats and who would be happy to look after hers as well. In fact, the old woman prefers cats to men. "Men have let me down, but animals, never. Never!" says Madame Renee, played by local resident and non-actress Renee Le Calm as a feisty old woman in her eighties.
After a vacation concisely summarized by a five second shot of her in the ocean, Chloe returns to find that Madame Renee no longer has her cat. A window was accidentally left open, and Gris-Gris has disappeared.
This early plot device of a truant cat launches the body of the story. Chloe enlists a host of local residents in her search. The men scour the small streets of Paris with her, and a network of older women form a telephone chain to communicate the results of their search. Easily the best visual in the show has the camera flitting back and forth from one rooftop to the next as the old women plan their watch with military precision. The scene is reminiscent of the one in which the cat is trailed in THAT DARN CAT.
Soon, however, the cat becomes less and less important. The story gets wrapped up in all of the relationships that Chloe establishes with her neighbors.
A subplot deals with the destruction of the old Paris to make way for the new. A building is shown being demolished, and half of the people seem to be in the process of being evicted from their apartments.
If, like I, you are able to guess the resolution of the missing cat mystery, it will not detract from the story. The movie's interest lies strictly in the people Chloe meets. Rohmer could have found her some more interesting ones, but the ones she does run into possess a certain charm.
WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY runs 1:36. It is rated R for profanity and an explicit sexual scene. (The Parisians in the film seem to smoke, drink and breathe in about equal proportions.) The picture would be fine for mature teenagers. I give this delicate film thumbs up and ** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: July 27, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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