Hugo (2011) - Movie Review

Hi Guys,

After a long time, I am writing a movie review. After seeing Hugo, I decided I should write about the movie. Seeing the movie was such a wonderful experience. The movie had a beautiful story accompanied by superb cinematography and great music.

Directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, the movie is a masterpiece set in the backdrop of Paris Railway Station in the 1930s. Starring, Asa Butterfield (Hugo Cabret), Ben Kingsley (Georges Melies) and Chloe Grace Moretz (Isabelle), the movie shows us the life of a young orphan boy, Hugo trying to unravel the mystery behind an automatic machine.

The movie begins with Hugo trying to steal things from a toy shop in Paris Railway station. Georges Melies catches him and accusing Hugo as thief, he takes a note book from Hugo. The notebook is filled with mechanisms. Hugo pleads for the notebook, but Georges refuses to give it.

He goes to Georges home, where he meets Isabelle who is Georges’ God daughter. They become friends. Meanwhile we are shown that Hugo’s father died in a fire and he left Hugo an unfinished automatic machine which is known as Automaton. Hugo believes his father has left him a message in it and desperate to repair it, he has done the stealing. He stays at his uncle’s home in Railway station and his uncle is the time keeper. He leaves the job to Hugo and flees.

Hugo steals food from the station and eats. There is a crimpled station inspector who hates orphans and sends them to orphanage. There is an elderly lady who has a cute dog. An elderly man comes to meet her every day but the dog keeps chasing him away. There is also a lovely young woman at a flower shop and the station inspector loves her.

After few attempts, Hugo comes to know that Isabelle has the key to turn on the automaton. They turn on the automaton and the automaton draws a figure and in the end the sign of Georges Melies appears. To solve the mystery they go their home and asks Georges wife about that. She is shocked and Georges return home at the same time. She tells the children to hide and while searching a cupboard they find huge number of drawings. Finding it out, Georges starts crying.

In a book at the library, the children find that Georges was a great movie director in the early 1900s and has directed more than 500 movies. A movie critic watches them and says that he is a great fan of Georges and he died during the world war. He takes the children to his place and shows them some of the things that belonged to Georges. The children plan to surprise Georges by showing him the only remaining movie of his direction.

Everything goes well and the children find out a few surprises about Mr and Mrs Melies. Hugo comes back to the station to take the automaton and hand it over to Georges, but the station inspector catches him. Does he escape and does he hand over the automaton to Georges forms the remaining part of the movie.

Dialogues are a big advantage to the quote. When Isabelle asks Hugo about the Earth he says, ‘I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.’

When Isabelle sees the Automaton for the first time, she says that the face of the automaton is sad. Hugo says that ‘Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken.’

Later Georges tells Hugo that he has learnt one good lesson in his life and that is ‘Good endings happens only in movies’ After seeing this movie I thought that this movie too follows the same principle.

We are also shown how people created movies in the early days when there were no modern equipments. The movie makers do changes in each and every frame. When Isabelle expresses here astonishment for the color pictures, her mama says that they tainted the movie frame by frame.

The visual treatment and sound effects are great and deserving the movie has won Oscar awards for Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. The movie has also won award for Art Direction and yes the art director has recreated the 1930 Paris so perfectly.

Martin Scorsese has given us some very good movies and he hasn’t disappointed us this time too.

Happy Reading!!!