Hugo

Martin Scorsese's "Hugo"

It's surprising how few people have heard about this, but it's worth telling about!

Now, all I have to say about this movie can be summed up in two words:  WATCH IT!

Seriously. That's all. No, I'll give a little more detail than that. Martin Scorsese is a very well-known director who mainly does movies I would never watch, but this movie (which is only rated PG, hooray!) is an exception. It is based on the book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by a man named Brian Selznick, who has written several books in mainly the same style. In most of them, the story is half words, half pictures--really, really well-drawn pictures. Very artsy, which is perhaps why Scorsese decided to tackle the book. 

Now on to the actual movie. It follows the story of an orphan boy Hugo Cabret, who lives in a train station (you'll find out why if you watch it) and takes care of winding and maintaining all the clocks in the station. He has a knack for machinery and becomes friends with Isabelle, the goddaughter of the station's toyseller. They find out that her godfather, the toymaker, is really Georges Melies, who is a real historical character, pretty much the father of modern film-making. Yeah. It's a movie about movies. Which is really cool! It takes you through the story of how the old filmmakers made their movies and some of the techniques they probably used, and does it through a very intriguing story.  Hugo and Isabelle solve a mystery about why Georges Melies stopped making movies, and he is "fixed" (in their words) to accept and be proud of what he has done.  It's just such a nice, pleasant story, though frustrating while in the middle of it. Very well done, with crazy attention to detail and historical accuracy. (The only problem I have is that it's set in France and they all speak English with British accents...hmmm...except for a couple random citizens.) 

The content is pleasantly good as well. There is (finally, FINALLY) no swearing in it. It is rated PG for "mild thematic material" and smoking. So if smoking bothers you, then don't watch it. EEEK!! Smoking! (This is one of my pet peeves, when they put "smoking" on as a reason for rating the movie PG. I mean, really?) The thematic material is, I assume, due to the background conversations of the station inspector (who is really quite hilarious most of the time) and another police officer who comes to take the orphans to an orphanage. Due to his search for orphans, the station inspector is Hugo's main enemy, by the way, but, I digress.  The two officers talk about one whose wife evidently ran away from him, and has now returned, etc. but all in all it is easily ignored; it's not an important part of the story and really the watcher is supposed to be concentrating on other things, not that conversation. (And his wife comes back to him, all is well in the end.)

There aren't really any "scary" parts in it either. There is a dream sequence where Hugo finds himself turning into an automaton (a robot, which is part of the story, I can't tell you any more without giving everything away), which can be a little bit disturbing, especially to younger children. My little sisters and brother were all scared of it, so when Hugo discovers that his pocketwatch is gone from its hook and ticking is still all around him, we can just tell them not to look. Problem solved! Of course, without being scary, the movie can be rather stressful. Like, COME ON KID JUST DO YOUR THING AND TELL THE OLD MAN WHAT YOU'RE UP TO! Ahem. Sorry.

To sum up, Hugo is a delightfully intelligent, artistic movie without being extremely "edgy" or "out there." I've heard it described as "boring" and to some with lesser, ahem, shall we say attention spans than myself, it could be, but the story is excellent, the acting is excellent, and the music is great. (It's by Howard Shore, the same guy who did the music for LOTR and The Hobbit.) I would definitely recommend it, and if you don't "get the point" the first time through, watch it again until you understand the whole story. (Reading the book is helpful too, even though they did change a couple things.) Plus, Christopher Lee plays a small, supporting part. So sad...now whenever I see him in anything, even as a bad guy, it makes me sad...Anyhow, I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good flick.