If it's true that Kaplishe's best film remains 'un air de famille', where all he had to do was join the dots of Agnes Jaoui's and Jean-Pierre Bacri's peerless screenplay, he does also have a quirkiness all his own which comes out in 'Little Nothings' and in this entry. I don't know what school these translators go to to learn how to screw up titles - one recent gem was 'The Girl From Paris' from the French, One Swallow Does Not Make A Summer. Weird. Kaplishe's own 'L'Auberge Espanol' underwent a similar bizarre translation which I asked him about personally and he was just as baffled as the rest of us. Chacun cherche son chat translates as Each searches for his own cat, with cat, of course, being a metaphor for happiness, and so it is here. Chloe is really looking for Mr Right but a missing cat is a convenient metaphor. As in other Kaplish entries we get the whole nine yards in terms of off-the-wall characters and the whole schmeer is set against the transformations taking place around North-East Paris between Bastille and Nation. Not a lot happens and it happens all at once. A charmer. 8/10
Review of When the Cat's Away
