Hugo (2011)

The magical nature of cinema is explored in Martin Scorsese's thoughtful family blockbuster. Largely enchanting and spellbinding throughout, Hugo's alternating and heartbreaking nature is the result of a poignant narrative, super direction from Martin and a truly superb multi-generational cast.

Paris, 1931. Young Hugo (Asa Butterfield) maintains the clocks of a great railway station while avoiding the guard (Sacha Baron Cohen) intent on sending him to an orphanage. Aided by Isabelle (Chloe Mortez), Hugo gets an Automaton left by his late father (Jude Law) working. It draws a picture which prompts the children to delve into the mystery of the unhappy shopkeeper (Sir Ben Kinglsey).

Surprisingly this is the first Scorsese film built entirely around the dominant passion in his life - cinema itself. Hugo finds Scorsese - the most heavyweight director to make a 3D movie - wholly embracing the possibilities of contemporary technology in the way Melies did in his day. The movie is assembled with an obsessive delight in a combination of magic and mechanics, which unites his young and old heroes, a stage conjurer-turned filmmaker and a lad with an inherited knack of fixing clockwork contraptions.

Scorsese frames the story within a luscious depiction of Paris, using that canvas to deploy some technical brilliance. The extended opening shot swoops through the rooftops and into the steampunk station before scurrying through the dark recesses to encounter Hugo's sorrowful image. The sequence immerses us in the environment. Similarly, fantastic use of 3D - enhances rather than detracts from the narrative.

You could argue that Asa Butterfield and Chloe Moretz  lack experience, but are never out of their depth. The former imbues streetwise Hugo with a mournful sense of innocence and wonder, while Moretz possess a disarming sweetness, bandying about words of a more sweeter nature than she did in Kick-Ass. At the movies' core is a mesmerising turn from Sir Ben Kingsley, who adds so much depth to a man who has closed the door on a painful past. In a similar role, Helen McCory also shines, while the imposing figure of Sir Christopher Lee lends dramatic weight as a bookshop owner.


Hugo's personal story features serial-like scrapes, and dream sequences in which the boy becomes a clockwork cyborg or causes a spectacular train smash. It gets round to a dramatisation of the pre-War world of cinema, which is also an endearing love story. Hugo has some sequences that will make anyone interested in film go misty-eyed as we witness the creation of  movies.

Hugo is a powerful reminder of the magic of cinema and the effect it has on so many lives. It offers excitement and enchantment in equal measure and will surely become a lasting favourite.