A family film for adults

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2012)

Ever since Martin Scorsese won his long overdue Oscar with The Departed he could anything he wants as a filmmaker. After his homage to B-Horror films with Shutter Island film fans were taken aback when he announced he was going to a 3D Family film. But of course Scorsese impressed critics and fans the world over once again.
In a train station in Paris in the 1930 Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan boy who maintains the clocks in the station. He has to steal to survive and he has to avoid the Station Inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen). His only link to his dead father (Jude Law) is a broken automata robot which he was fixing and believes that if he gets it to work he would get a message from his father from beyond the grave. He meets a girl, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) who has a key to unlock the automata so it can work and relieve it secrets. It turns out that it leads to a bigger secret involving Isabelle's godfather and surrogate parent, Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley).
Many people were very hesitant towards Hugo, partly because it was something very different from Scorsese's previous films, but mainly because of its very slapstick heavy trailer. But of course Scorsese is one of the best directors ever and he delivers with his family film for adults. Hugo is a mystery that is for most part is serious, with a few moments of comedy. The whole story about the automata is solved pretty quickly and the film then turns into a love letter to early cinema and how very inventive early filmmakers were with set design and scope of story. All the characters have all their issues and problems they need to overcome, Hugo himself is lonely and suffering from grief, trying to find that one connection to his father who died in a tragic accident. Georges is a man wants to forget the past and whilst on the surface a seemingly bitter man there is a lot issues and character behind it. Isabelle is a young girl who lived a shuttered life, escaping into a world of adventure and longs for one herself and ask what her purpose in life (despite the fact she is only 11/12). Even the minor characters have mini-arcs, like The Station Inspector who needs to gain the courage to ask out the flower girl (Emily Mortimer) and the newspaper seller (Richard Griffiths) wanting to get to know the café (Frances de la Tour) but her dachshund keeps attacking him. Hugo has an pleasant old fashion feel to through, a good natured mystery about children working together to solve a mystery and showing they are mature enough to handle secret and that it works as a coming of age story. If anything it might be a little too pleasant because there is no real scene of danger or peril.
Scorsese uses the train station setting to great effect, bring us into this little world. The 3D was great for most of the film, Scorsese knew how to use the technology, putting items in the foreground to enhance the effect and the wintry weather added to 3D, showing things in the distance. Scorsese knows how to move the camera, to show us this world and brings us a depth of feel like looking down a letter. The use of clock towers and a mechanical automata really are perfect for 3D films just because of the different layers of cogs and mechanical parts. Scorsese also brings has some excellent set pieces involving a sequence involving a train crashing through the station and Hugo dream that he turns into the automata. The 3D and editing compliment the sequences.
The acting is great. We know that Butterfield and Mortez are great child actors, having shown their talents in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Kick-Ass. They have a great chemistry together and work together. Despite an initial animosity they become friends very quickly. Hugo is a character with a talent for fixing things, working with his hands, but is sad, lonely and at times angry. He longs to have one last connection with his father, the person he loved the most. Mortez performance reminded me of a young Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, but not as obnoxious: a book smart character who has a sense of adventure. Mortez is a better actress then Watson and she does an excellent English accent for such a young American actress. Of course the adult cast is strong, Kingsley actually playing a good guy for once as a man trying to suppress the past because it hurts too much, even if it affects the rest of his family. Cohen is a funny as the comic foil character whilst a villain, not an evil man, just someone doing his job. It also shows Cohen can be funny in a family friendly way.
The theme of Hugo is the celebration of how filmmakers were inventive, how they turned this new media which was written off as a fad and show its potential as a form of storytelling, art and basically allowing people to see and fulfil their dreams and fantasy. Scorsese does this using the newest tool to film making, though 3D is properly on the way because producers see it as a way to make a extra money. 3D as a tool that should be used when there is a real reason, when the director actually envisions how to use it and it needs to be done using 3D cameras and on set.
Howard Shore also shows that he is a talented composer, giving Hugo a filling score, using typical French movie to music that would have been used in silent films.
I do not believe Hugo is Martin Scorsese's best film and as a family film I think it is more geared to adults, but Hugo is a very good film.