Review: Hugo

• Writing
• Acting
• Directing
• Production Values
• Enjoyment

Hugo (titled Hugo Cabret outside the USA) is a Martin Scorsese film.  I’d managed to learn very little about this film, before seeing it.  In fact, I thought the title was somehow a reference to writer Victor Hugo.  In actuality, it is based on a children’s book called The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.

I did see Martin Scorsese making the rounds of the evening talk shows and the morning news/talk shows.  Consistently, the interviewers talked about how surprising it is to see a movie like this from Martin Scorsese.  Scorsese is best known for films like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and The Departed.  More likely than not, a Scorsese film involves someone getting bludgeoned to death and usually stars either Robert De Niro or Leonardo DiCaprio.  I can only conclude that said interviewers did not actually watch the film, or knew little about Martin Scorsese, because after seeing the film, I can only ask – how could Martin Scorsese have not made this film.  Hugo is a love letter to the origins of film and there are few film historians more passionate than Scorsese.  I imagine that the small cameo role he gives himself, in the film, was a fantasy come true.

Hugo (played by Asa Butterfield) is a young orphan that happens to live in the hidden recesses and mezzanines of a Parisian train station in the 1930s.  His father was a clock-maker, and Hugo picked up enough understanding of how clocks work that he keeps the train station clocks running.  He has one possession to remind him of his father and needs parts to fix it.  His search for those parts leads him to meet the proprietor of a toy stand in the train station.  That man is Georges Méliès (played by Sir Ben Kingsley).  Georges Méliès was one of the first filmmakers.  His name may not be familiar to everyone, but most people will recognize  the picture to the left, from his film Le Voyage dans la Lune, made in 1902.

Hugo and Georges are both people that have had the life they loved ripped away from them and are searching for some meaning or purpose and this commonality forms a bond between them.

Hugo is the first 3D film from Martin Scorsese.  This is no 3D conversion, like many of the films of the last few years.  This is a real 3D film.  The entire cinematographic palette of this film is beautiful.  The 3D is natural and never used as a gimmick.  The opening scene has the camera moving through the train station that will serve as the stage for the story, and it is an amazing piece of 3D.  There are a couple of chase scenes in the film and 3D is used in those to provide perspective and Hugo climbs into the clock tower of the station.  One of those scenes ends in an exciting homage to the 1923 Harold Lloyd film, Safety Last!

One expects quality cinema from Martin Scorsese, but he alone isn’t responsible for the success of this film – the cast is wonderful.  Young Asa Butterfield has great control and emotional range for such a young boy, and he is genetically blessed with the biggest pale blue eyes that just suck the viewer into every scene.  I’m excited to hear that he will be playing the titular role in the film adaption of the classic science fiction novel, Ender’s Game.  Ben Kingsley turns in some of his best work since Gandhi.  Chloë Grace Moretz is almost as good in this film as she was in Kick-Ass, where she played a child vigilante.  The train station is given life by Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Frances De La Tour, Richard Griffiths, and Christopher Lee.  Sacha Baron Cohen (best known for Borat) plays Hugo’s nemesis – the police inspector responsible for maintaining law and order in the train station.  He’s a little over the top mustache twirling, but manages to also make the character sympathetic.

3D works best when it is used to help bring dimension to a world, allowing the viewers to feel immersed.  Avatar is the gold medal example of this.  The entire world of Pandora was imaginary, including to some degree, the physics, and yet the viewers completely bought it.  In Hugo, Scorsese brings what to a lesser director would be the most mundane of environments, a train station, and turns it into a wonderful world to explore.

Hugo is a beautiful film and has a big heart.