HUGO
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: John Logan (screenplay) and Brian Selznick (novel)
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sir Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Ray Winstone, and Christopher Lee
Under normal circumstances, one would never associate the name Martin Scorsese with family entertainment. Usually associated with the mobster-crime-action genre, the iconic director has branched out with his latest film HUGO, based Brian Selznick’s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Will it be ranked as one of Scorsese’s best of all time? Probably not, but if you’re willing to go on the breathtakingly gorgeous journey with this master craftsman, it will sweep you off your feet. Completely engaging, enrapturing, and enchanting, it’s a love letter to cinema. However, this is a kids’ movie that’s for adults.
In HUGO, our titular protagonist (Asa Butterfield) is a 12-year-old orphan boy who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in the 1930s. He secretly keeps the clocks in the station running smoothly, while evading the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) so he won’t be shipped off to an orphanage. To survive, Hugo steals goods from the shops in the station, however, things take a turn when he tries to steal a toy from Papa Georges’ (Sir Ben Kingsley) collectibles shop. Caught and forced to empty his pockets, Hugo’s priceless notebook – which contains instructions for fixing the automaton robot he and his now-deceased father set out to rebuild – is taken from him. He meets up with Isabel, Georges’ goddaughter, who tells him in order to get the notebook back, he must remain “steadfast” and endear himself to Georges. But what’s in that notebook that’s so upsetting to Georges? And for what reason? This is where the film’s adventure takes off.
There are very few negatives about HUGO. The story tends to drag at the beginning of the second act. Attempts to add in some pratfalls and physical comedy with the Inspector crashing into a bass, getting hooked onto a train, and having his leg brace freeze up, fall a little flat. However, the biggest problem with the film is that its subject matter probably won’t resonate with young children. Themes of the death of dreams and the value of film preservation are heady topics for anyone under the age of 12. Beyond that, this is solid entertainment for both teen and adult cinephiles.
As Scorsese does throughout his oeuvre, he composes shots as loving homages to filmmakers who’ve inspired him. In HUGO, there is a sequence where Isabel, struggling to follow Hugo back to his lair, takes a tumble and comes close to getting trampled. That shot of a panic stricken Isabel was lifted from Powell-Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES (the image that adorns the DVD case). His recreations of real life director Georges Méliès iconic and oft-copied milieu and studios (see Smashing Pumpkin’s “Tonight Tonight” music video for their A TRIP TO THE MOON homage), is stunning elegance incarnate. His grasp of 3-D and reverence for the technology gives the images a beautiful layered effect and works well within the frame of HUGO’s story.
Perhaps one of the best surprises in the film is Kingsley, who turns in one of his finest performances in a long time. He’s the perfect picture of a broken man in need of fixing. Longtime collaborator and Production Designer Dante Ferretti gives the audience pure visual opulence. Composer Howard Shore delivers a melodic and melancholic Parisian influenced musical score that’s never obtrusive. Not to be outdone, the two finest pint size performances in the film were the two dachshunds in the train station’s café! It earns an extra half star just for that.
