When The Cat's Away

For most people, the ubiquitous "Cat Missing" notices posted in their neighborhoods evoke at best a spark of pathos. For French filmmaker Cédric Klapisch, they inspired a small masterpiece of charming cinematic realism. In When the Cat's Away, he regards the overlooked details of everyday life, the commonplace trials and triumphs of an average life.

Chloé (a pert and appealing Garance Clavel) entrusts her elderly neighbor Madame Renée (splendid non-actor Renée Le Calm) with her cat while she's away on vacation from her demeaning job as a make-up artist. Upon her return (her two weeks at the seashore reduced to a single shot of her in the water is typical of Klapisch's wit and precision), the cat has disappeared. Together with Madame Renée, who mobilizes a network of local, lonely old ladies and assorted misfits, she combs the neighborhood -- the multicultural, soon-to-be-gentrified Bastille district in Paris -- for her prodigal feline.

Predictably, in her search Chloé discovers the rich, varied, sometimes ugly world of her habitat, and she learns that her life is lacking more than a cat. Although largely improvised, the plot unfolds with startling twists and zesty serendipity, and the cast of eccentrics -- almost all local residents -- elevate the film whenever it threatens to sink from simplicity to sentimentality. When the Cat's Away is cinema as serious play. Opens Friday at the Avon and Jane Pickens.

-- Peter Keough