French cinema veteran Daniel Auteuil stars in this smart and engrossing story about a Jewish jeweller hiding from the Nazis in his own basement.
The opening of Farewell Mr Haffmann is familiar enough. It's 1941 in Paris, and the city is waiting in trepidation for the arrival of the German occupiers. Particularly the city's Jewish population.
Jeweller Joseph Haffman (Daniel Auteuil) is packing off his family to the relative safety of the South.
Meanwhile, his assistant Francois (Gilles Lelouche) feels his talents aren't appreciated and is also resentful that his crooked leg has kept him out of the war. But his luck is about to change.
Joseph offers Francois a deal - he then buys the shop for a pittance while Joseph escapes to join his family.
After the war, Joseph will return, and Francois can then sell the business back to him for the same price.
Francois is delighted - at last, he can run the business his way - though his wife Blanche feels guilty they're profiting from the Haffmanns' misfortune.
But suddenly there's a snag. With German troops all over the city, Joseph can't get away and is forced to hide in the basement.
Francois reassures him and comes up with a plan. Joseph stays inside, making jewellery. In exchange, Francois will hide him, feed him and also post letters to his family.
Francois takes over the front-of-house side of things and builds up an unexpected new clientele. It seems German officers are very keen on jewellery as gifts for their new Parisian girlfriends.
So now the roles of Joseph and Francois have swapped, but there are more twists and turns in the plot to come.
Farewell Mr Haffmann is based on a smart, award-winning French play, and it shows.
It's been a while since I've seen Daniel Auteuil, and I'd forgotten how good he is in a role like this - sympathetic, watchful, intense.
And as Francois, Gilles Lelouche plays a not-too-bright chancer, using the situation to get all the things he's ever wanted. Certainly, his new German Army friends seem to have an endless supply of beautiful gemstones to work with these days.
Of course, Joseph has no doubt where all this valuable jewellery has come from - he recognises some of the pieces he made for Jewish clients. But when he protests, Francois threatens to turn him in.
Caught between the two men is Francois's wife Blanche (played by Sara Giraudeau, star of the hit TV series The Bureau).
Torn between loyalty to her husband and sympathy for the man he's exploiting, she represents the choices being made all over France at the time.
She finds herself turning to the kindly jeweller Joseph for support, but at the same time, she blames him for all their troubles.
Offering Francois the shop was a mistake, Blanche says. He was so much happier when he had nothing. He just didn't realise it.
Farewell Mr Haffmann is an old-fashioned, well-made play, turned into an engrossing film, despite the - let's face it - pretty familiar story.
The secret is the casting, of course. Auteuil is always good, and Gilles Lelouche is a good match for him - he reminded me of a young Gerard Depardieu.
But Sara Giraudeau is the heart and soul of the film. The ending, as she sees off not only Mr Haffman but also her husband, is stunning.
