Hugo Boss

Rating: 8/10 (7 February 2012)

"Hugo", Rated "PG" for Adult Situations and Mild Thematic Elements. Running Time: 2hrs.&8mns.
My Take ***1/2 (Out of ****)
At the end of January 2012, the nominees for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced. Leading the pack with 11 nominations is Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" (2011), a film that was met with universal critical acclaim. Unfortunately for the people behind "Hugo" the movie's box office returns were disappointing. The film grossed just $90 million, which is far below the film's $150 million budget. Perhaps on Oscar night all will be forgiven and there will be a renewed interest in the picture (as of this writing the 84th Annual Academy Awards is two & 1/2 weeks away).
On the surface, "Hugo" appears to be a departure from what movie goers expect from director Martin Scorsese. Over the last 30 years he has made a reputation and a Hollywood career out of gritty hard edged crime dramas, many focusing on the mafia. Don't be deceived. Scorsese has been known to make lovely artistic dramas as well. Even now it's hard to think that the man who brought us the likes of "GoodFellas" (1990) and "The Departed" (2006) is also the same guy who brought us the 19th century period piece high society film "The Age of Innocence" (1993) or "Kundun" (1997), a film about the Dalai Lama.
To watch "Hugo," it is apparent the movie was a passion project for Scorsese. He's a celebrated filmmaker and "Hugo" is celebration of the movies. More importantly, it is about dreamers and the dreams they dream. Who better than Scorsese to bring this story to you? The movie opens in the winter of 1930s Paris. Young Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan living in the Gare Montparnasse train station. He was the ward of his uncle (Ray Winstone) after his father (Jude Law) passed away in a museum fire. Now the uncle has been missing for several months, leaving no one to wind the clocks in the great station, save for Hugo. He performs his duties daily without fail.
Before Hugo's father passed away, the father and son had started restoring a dilapidated automaton, which is a mysterious mechanical man that supposedly writes a special message with a pen. Hugo is determined to bring the mechanical man back to life, if only to write Hugo a message which he believes will be from his late father.
Everything is a challenge for Hugo. To make ends meet, Hugo steals food to survive and mechanical parts for his machine restoration. He is careful to not get caught by the train station watchman, the inspector Gustav (Sasha Baron Cohen) who is ever vigil and quite experienced in sending orphans into group homes. The most prominent figure Hugo encounters at the train station is the toy store owner Georges (Sir Ben Kingsley). Hugo regularly lifts items from his store until one day Georges finally catches him. In a heartbreaking turn of events, Hugo's dream of restoring the automaton comes to a bitter end.
Hugo has been on his own for so long, he's not too sure how to take the prospect of making a new friend in Georges goddaughter Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). She has a lively imagination and a love of books. Hugo loves to hear about the stories she reads and he in turn shares with her one of his loves he used to enjoy with his late father: the cinema. The movies Hugo and his father loved best were the ones rich in imagination where the possibilities of the screen seemed boundless. In fact, one character in "Hugo" describes the movies as a place where a person could see the dreams from their sleep on the screen.
It is pleasant to watch Hugo and Isabelle talk about dreams as if they are an elixir of life. Leave it to true dreamers to see them as such. These are smart kids dealing with the circumstances in their lives on their own terms. You generally don't see kids in the movies with this much passion about what makes them tick.
It has been suggested that "Hugo" is Martin Scorsese's autobiography. He has been consistently a powerful filmmaker with precise clear vision. "Hugo" talks about the human drive for visions and imagination. It asks viewers what inspires them and what encourages them to carry on with their daily lives.
Sometimes people lose their dreams. When that happens, everything they've done previous to that can be lost. "Hugo" also shows us this loss and what it is to reach redemption and become reinvested once again.
"Hugo" easily boasts the best looking visuals used to re-create the past, giving everything a recognizable, yet unearthly quality. The best way to describe it is it looks gritty and feels like something out of a storybook at the same time. All the buildings, machinery, sets and costuming are created in top form.
There are a lot of really brilliant metaphors in "Hugo" that hint about ideas, hopes and dreams. I believe that more than one viewing of this picture can take people to different places with each viewing. That's an unusual thing to say about a family geared movie. But then, "Hugo" isn't just any film. How many features do you know that challenge us to look at ourselves, no matter what our circumstances are and then invite us to keep on dreaming? "Hugo" does just that. The film honors the wonder of the movies and encourages us to celebrate dreaming.