Martin Scorsese wants you to love movies and moviemaking like he does, and that is the point of “Hugo,” a meandering film about an orphan who lives in a 1930s French train station. Unfortunately, he also wants you to heap adoration on underappreciated filmmakers, for which he was Exhibit A for 20 years. The latter ultimately makes what is an excellent technical film a self-aggrandizing and wandering story.
The titular character (Asa Butterfield), largely uncared for since his father’s death, steals his way through life, grabbing food when he can and finding amazing ways to escape the Station Inspector (a very game Sacha Baron Cohen). He escapes notice by residing in a long forgotten small living area created for the person in charge of keeping the station clocks running – his uncle. He also plunders watchful toy store owner Georges (Ben Kingsley) for gears and other parts to tinker with an automaton his father was working on before his death.
Hugo draws the eye of Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) after Georges confiscates his notebook on how to fix the automaton. Isabelle is Georges’ charge, and having also lost her parents has an instant kinship with Hugo. Together they explore the station and the world outside, including the cinema, which she has been banned from experiencing by Georges and his wife Jeanne (Helen McCrory). Coincidentally, she also possesses a key toward making the automaton fulfill its purpose.
Station life is teeming with characters that though wonderfully acted, have very little to do with Hugo or the plot. Store owners such as Monsieur Frick (Richard Griffiths) and Madame Emilie (Frances de la Tour) have gift-wrapped vignettes to flesh out the station but have little to do with the plot. During these, an already patient story loses its cohesion and is delayed from progressing toward the real message of the film.
Story aside, “Hugo” is exactly what one would expect for a master director – if clockwork is a central theme then Scorsese is the watchmaker. The supporting acting is excellent in creating believable and fully-realized characters from the bubbly energy of Moretz to the nostalgically forlorn McCrory – think how the Harry Potter saga was all the richer for the secondary characters.
The shot making is brilliant and the details of the Parisian backdrops are mesmerizing. The 3D is as good as in “Avatar” and very effective, even if Scorsese plays with it a bit much at times. And Hugo’s immediate universe is palpable yet lightly fleeting, no surprise given its basis on a true story retouched by Scorsese’s deft paintbrush.
“Hugo” could have been a tighter story that would have cut out some fine acting and character development but kept a better focus on its principal characters and ideas – namely that society should appreciate the arts and cinema in particular. Had Scorsese won a deserved Oscar for “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” or even “Goodfellas,” he may never have been attracted to “Hugo.”
And while “Hugo” has a lot going for it because of its director, it ultimately is his hubris that leaves a slight aftertaste. Everyone knows you’re a cinematic genius, Mr. Scorsese, and that the Academy screwed up in delaying the inevitable Oscar for so many years. We just don’t need to be told again.
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese SCREENWRITER: John Logan (screenplay), Brian Selznick (book) CAST: Asa Butterfield, Sacha Baron Cohen, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley MPAA RATING: PG
