HUGO

Hugo (2011)
Grade: A
DIRECTED BY MARTIN SCORCESE
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helen McCrory, Michael Stuhlbarg, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, and Jude Law
PREMISE: An orphan in 1930s Paris works to fix a machine his late father was working on, only to find the completed invention may not only help him, but others as well.

RATED PG (contains scenes of peril, some emotional content, and brief scary images)

"Thank you for the movie today. It was a gift."

--That line, delivered about mid-way through Martin Scorcese's newest film, by Isabelle, a young French sweetheart played by a glowing Chloe Grace Moretz, just about summarizes how I felt about the experience of seeing the movie Hugo. Hugo is an accessible, emotionally-layered movie-about movies-which I saw in the newest fashion in movies (3D), that features likable characters, wondrous sights, and moments that will make you (as they did me) laugh, gasp, and nearly cry. It's also a sweetly-innocent film that stresses the importance of friendship, love, and chasing your dreams.

--Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is alone. He lives in the chambers inside the walls of the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris, winding and setting the station's many clocks, just as his drunken uncle (Ray Winstone) taught him. By winter 1930, that uncle has disappeared, leaving Hugo to fend for himself. Orphaned and relocated to the station after his clockmaker/inventor father (Jude Law, who is only in one scene) died in a fire, he spends the time he is not winding the clocks sneaking bites to eat from the different shops in the station, spying on people, and working on an automaton his father found in an alley outside a museum and was intent on fixing. The automaton-an effective human look-alike-is Hugo's only companion, and he is ever trying to find the right gears and screws to make the little engine inside it work. He gets his different pieces by swiping them from the shop of an old, weary toymaker (Ben Kingsley), all the while doing his best to avoid detection by the station's poisonous police inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen).

-After one theft attempt goes awry, Hugo meets Isabelle (Moretz), the old man's goddaughter, a perky, lively girl with a love for reading. They soon become good friends, and while she introduces Hugo to a bookkeeper (Christopher Lee) and his enormous shop, he introduces her to movies--appalled to find she's never seen one (Hugo's father raised him on movies), Hugo sneaks her into one at a nearby cinema. Their interest in movies subsequently takes off, and, while reading a book on movies at a nearby library one day, they realize Isabelle's Papa George is actually Georges Melies, the "father of special effects" and one of the most successful early filmmakers. He's become so sad and bitter because his movies were largely rejected after World War I, with accusations that they were childish and foolish. It isn't until Hugo and Isabelle find the key to fixing Hugo's automaton that they realize there might be a way to reinvigorate Georges after all.

-Yep, this movie was directed by Martin Scorcese, and yes, it's PG. And that's legit. There's no violence, no cussing, nothing to indicate this movie was made by the man behind gritty classic fare like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York and The Departed. Nothing except a love of movies, that is. Critics have described this film as "the closest to [Scorcese's] heart" of all his films, and "a love letter to cinema", and it is, as you find when the film begins to venture into Melies' past, what with his discovery of movies and his delight in making them (seen in a number of vivid, exciting, beautifully-filmed scenes). Chunks of Melies' actual films appear (most prominent among them the 1902 A Trip to the Moon), as does the entirety of the Lumiere's brothers' 1895 classic Arrival of a Train at a Station.

-Fascinating. That's what it becomes. What is a genuinely touching, heartfelt story of friendship between two lonely orphans (Isabelle's parents died before she could remember them) transitions quickly into a history-and-appreciation-of-film story, a transition that is a little jarring and does take some getting used to. Viewers who don't know much about the history of movies may find some of the material a little difficult to understand, but for a big movie fan like me, it was paradise: you get glimpses of Melies' private studio, the sets and costumes of his old films brought to vividest color, the aforementioned actual clips of old films, the sense of genuine thrill of audiences watching their first movies (the likes of which they'd never seen), and peeks into the way early special effects were accomplished. There's also a beautiful scene where Melies, as a passionate younger man at the height of his movie-making prowess, encourages a boy even younger than Hugo to dream big.

--That's not to mention, the film that unfolds around this love-of-film core is pretty terrific as well, what with the beautifully-staged developing friendship between Hugo and Isabelle (though he's much more withdrawn, he's handy, while she's all energy and imagination), some edge-of-your-seat-tense sequences that turn out to be dreams, and a quietly graceful scene where the normally-malicious station inspector tries to start a charming conversation with the kind-faced lady who sells flowers (Emily Mortimer). A few other standout moments include Hugo and Isabelle's trip to the movies-Moretz' delighted reactions to the happenings onscreen are practically worth the price of admission on their own-and the scene where Hugo, Isabelle, and a film professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) sit down with Georges' wife (a wonderful Helen McCrory), a former actress, so she can watch A Trip to the Moon for the first time in many years.

--The acting is solid across the board, what with Butterfield and Moretz both flawlessly inhabiting young, lonely souls, and Kingsley bringing tremendous depth to both the embittered older Melies and his younger, more vibrant self; Stuhlbarg's part as a great admirer of Melies-and movies in general-is small but crucial, McCrory may give the film's best performance as the protective Mama Jeanne (as Isabelle calls her), and Cohen plays a hiss-worthy, yet human, antagonist.

--As I mentioned, the transition from kiddie friendship to Movie Worship movie startled me, and, despite the excellence of the material, it took me a while to warm up to it. That's not to fault the movie's making but to praise the kids--the heartfelt connection between Hugo and Isabelle puts to shame the connection presented by most movie couples today. Of course, these two twelve-year-olds are not that kind of couple, but their bond is very convincingly portrayed. The taciturn Butterfield seems a little outclassed, early on, by the delightful and spunky Moretz, but Hugo proves his value--other than the impulsive "movie date", he saves her from a few tight spots and even offers her reassurance when she reveals her deepest insecurity. Butterfield-who is all eyes in his pale face-also proves a very effective emoter.

--Hugo was also just the third film I've ever seen in 3-D, after 2007's Beowulf and last fall's Conan the Barbarian. A better movie by far than those two, I wouldn't say Hugo benefits too much from its added dimension (other than in a key scene or two), but I don't mind having paid the extra four dollars for the glasses.

So, do I recommend it?
Uh, yeah. Curiously, it's a PG-rated (and, therefore, family friendly) movie that will probably appeal more to adults than kids. Yes, there's action and humor and eye-popping spectacle, but the characters and emotion are what really makes this film soar.

Bottom line (I promise):
Go for it. Hugo is a rich, rewarding movie experience (and that "movie experience" part of that phrase means a heck of a lot more here than it does for almost any other movie).

Hugo (2011)
Directed by Martin Scorcese
Based on the Book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Bryan Selznick
Written by John Logan
Rated PG (contains some emotional content and scary images)
Length: 126 minutes