Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismki directs this comedy drama depicting the friendship between an illegal child immigrant and an elderly Frenchman. Marcel Marx Andr Wilms is an ageing shoe shiner living in the French port city of Le Havre with his beloved wife Arletty Kati Outinen. When Arletty becomes ill and is taken into hospital, Marcel takes in eight-year-old Idrissa Blondin Miguel, an illegal immigrant boy from Africa who is trying to get to his mother in London. Marcel comes under the scrutiny of local police inspector Monet Jean-Pierre Darroussin, but remains determined to help reunite Idrissa with his family.