Purring in Paris : Cedric Klapisch’s ‘When the Cat’s Away,’ a charming French film, follows a young woman whose life changes after losing her pet.

“When the Cat’s Away” is a bit of close-up magic, graceful enough to make something out of nothing. Small and intimate, it expands from its slight romantic comic premise to deal playfully with loneliness and love, providing a wry mash note to the city of Paris along the way.

Not the tourist Paris we usually see, but the workaday metropolis, specifically the neighborhood in transition that is the Bastille district. “When the Cat’s Away” shows a city in flux and an arrondissement where old people are evicted and older buildings demolished as the hip quickly replace the humble.

Writer-director Cedric Klapisch put this film together a little bit on the fly, but you’d hardly know it. A filmmaker whose latest work, “Un Air de Famille,” won three Cesars, the French Oscars, Klapisch has an impeccable feeling for people and their foibles. His gentle assurance and ability to push “When the Cat’s Away” in gently surprising directions give this film its unmistakable charm.

It all starts with that cat, Gris-Gris, black with a white spot, and Gris-Gris’ mistress Chloe (Garance Clavel), a waif-like young woman who works as a makeup stylist on high fashion photography shoots.

Chloe is going off on vacation and is desperate for someone to look after Gris-Gris. Her concierge laughs, her gay roommate Michel (Olivier Py) suggests tossing it out of a car window, so she ends up trusting it to Madame Renee (Renee Le Calm), the neighborhood cat woman.

“Men have often let me down, but cats never,” says Madame Renee, a feisty gnome who has five or six of the animals around at any given time. But when Chloe returns from her trip, she finds Madame Renee distraught: Gris-Gris has disappeared, probably out an open apartment window to a life on the rooftops of Paris.

Though her acquaintances don’t understand, Gris-Gris’ loss is a major one for Chloe. Frightened by men, by life, by everything but her cat, Chloe’s only friend is Gris-Gris. She must get it back. Or so she thinks.

For it is, of course, the gentle paradox of “When the Cat’s Away” that Chloe’s loss forces her to connect more with both her neighborhood and the rest of Paris than she’d ever thought to before.

First she meets the legion of eccentric cat fanciers, dotty elderly parties like the president of Cats Are People, Too, who divide all Paris into militaristic search zones and call to keep her posted on their progress even when there’s none to report.

Then, as Chloe puts posters up and becomes something of a local celebrity, she meets other neighbors, like Djamel (Zinedine Soualem), who is slightly deranged; a sad painter named Bel Canto (Joel Brisse); and a handsome young man (Romain Duris) she keeps crossing paths with. The more Chloe mixes in life, the more she craves it, but she’s so new to things she hardly knows where to begin.

Shot in semi-documentary style, “When the Cat’s Away” mixes professional and nonprofessional actors so adroitly you keep having to remind yourself that what you’re watching isn’t really happening. The most memorable performance is from one of the non-pros, Le Calm, who is in fact a real-life neighborhood cat lady whose experiences help inspire the film.

Only 35 years old, writer-director Klapisch is perhaps the most promising of the current bunch of young French filmmakers, able to charm both critics and audiences: “When the Cat’s Away” has played in Paris for over a year. Klapisch has the wonderful gift of appreciating the humor in his characters without robbing them of their humanity. To his film’s hope that prosperity doesn’t alter Paris beyond recognition should be added the wish that success doesn’t do the same to him.

* MPAA rating: R, for a brief strong sex scene and some language. Times guidelines: The sex scene is homosexual.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘When the Cat’s Away’

Garance Clavel: Chloe

Zinedine Soualem: Djamel

Renee Le Calm: Madame Renee Olivier Py: Michel

Romain Duris: Drummer

A Vertigo Productions and France2 Cinema co-production, with the participation of Canal+, released by Sony Pictures Classics. Director Cedric Klapisch. Producers Aissa Djabri, Farid Lahoussa, Manuel Munz. Screenplay Cedric Klapisch. Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme. Editor Francine Sandberg. Costumes Pierre Yves Gayraud. Set decorator Francois Emmanuelli. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

* In limited release.