Sometimes a movie comes along that I think of as perfect, not because it was made well or even acted well, but because it gave me a space in which to think clearly. It doesn't tell you what to think like so many modern movies try to. Hugo is one of those movies. It's about life and more specifically the role movies play in our lives.
When I first saw the previews for Hugo I thought it was a kid's move about a rapscallion pre-teen who lived in a train station and called everyone "gov'na." It isn't that at all. Ben Kingsley's character says when addressing his movie fans, "I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers." Are you one of those? If so, you're who Hugo was made for.
Hugo is a movie based on the bestselling book by Brian Selznick. It was directed by Martin Scorcese and it's about a 12-year-old named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) who lives in a huge clock in a train station. His father was a tinkerer and repairman who died in a museum fire. He left his son a broken automatron, a sort of 1930's version of a robot, and Hugo is determined to get it working. He thinks there is a message in it from his dad. He meets Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) a girl of his age who has a mysterious grandfather, Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). He has a toy stand in the station and seems to despise Hugo for some reason. He is unusually cruel.
There is also a ruthless inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) with a Doberman and a leg brace who captures vagrants in the station. He sends them to jail or to the orphanage. He is a sort of lingering nemesis of Hugo throughout the movie, although he provides few scenes of subtle comic relief; I laughed out loud watching him try and pick up a woman.
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