We start with a brilliant sequence at the Gard du Nord: a gang of eastern European hustlers cruise the station and shops, swiping here, slipping through the police’s fingers there. One, a young Ukrainian with a face like a hawk, attracts the attentions of a man in his 50s, who hires him to come to his flat the following day. But rather than turning up alone, the whole gang are there, trashing the flat and looting the man’s belongings. Such is the unlikely starting point for a strange and delicate love story whose emphasis shifts from the carnal to the familial, which plays in tandem with a neo-Dickensian immigrant thriller. Robin Campillo’s drama is sweet and neat, as ambitious as it is gripping.
