The Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has come to France for his latest film, making explicit his indebtedness to figures like Tati and Vigo. It is seductively funny, offbeat and warm-hearted, like the rest of his films, but with a new heartfelt urgency on the subject of northern Europe's attitude to desperate refugees from the developing world. The movie is set in the port city of Le Havre, maybe summoning a distant ghost of L'Atalante, and it has a solid, old-fashioned look; but for the contemporary theme, it could have been made at any time in the last 50 years. André Wilms is Marcel, a phlegmatic shoe-shine guy who plies his trade around the streets as best he can. He discovers a young boy called Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), an illegal immigrant on the run, and hides him from the authorities, including the tough Inspector Monet, superbly played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin. It's a drama that plays out in parallel with private heartbreak: Marcel's gentle wife Arletty, played by Kati Outinen, is in hospital. The drollery and deadpan in Kaurismäki's style in no way undermine the emotional force of this tale; they give it a sweetness and an ingenuous, Chaplinesque simplicity. It's a satisfying and distinctively lovable film.