Movie Review: Hugo

Poster from Rotten Tomatoes

Rating:**** out of 4

When I first saw that Hugo would be the new Martin Scorsese movie, I had two reactions.  Naturally, the first was to be excited because the great Scorsese was coming out with another movie.  But also, I was a bit skeptical about how good the film would actually be.  It is Scorsese, so I knew the film wouldn't be bad, but he has never done a children's film before (not even close).  But could he pull off the caliber of film that he has made with so many of his other classics with Hugo?  The answer to that is a resounding yes.

The film is about a boy named Hugo (of course) who lives alone, inside the clock tower of the train station in Paris, France.  He is able to survive day-to-day by stealing food, along with other materials which I will discuss in a moment.  Hugo (played by Asa Butterfield) also maintains and runs the clocks of the train station, which he has been doing since his alcoholic uncle (played by Ray Winstone) who had been taking care of him, ran away.  He hopes to keep up the facade that his Uncle is actually running the clocks so he is not taken to an orphanage.  Why is Hugo being raised by his Uncle to begin with?  More on that in a minute as well.

One of the places Hugo steals from inside the station is a toy and gadget store run by an older man named George Melies (played by Ben Kingsley).  He has apparently been doing this for a while, and one day, is caught red handed stealing gadget parts by Melies.  In addition to confiscating the parts he stole, Melies also confiscates a sketch book that Hugo has mechanical with drawings to some kind of robot.  This, of course, is why Hugo is stealing the gadget parts.  But why is he building a robot?  And just as important, why is Melies so shocked and insistent on keeping the notebook after Hugo has repeatedly begged him to give the notebook back?

 The movie soon reveals that Hugo actually is building a robot, specifically a small robot called an automaton (which are real, by the way).  It was the something that his father, a clock builder and gadget repairman (played by Jude Law) was working on fixing.  Hugo's father, who appears only briefly in the film, found the automaton in a burnt-up museum.  He doesn't get to work on it very long, as he is killed in a building fire, and thus, forces Hugo to move into the train station with his drunk Uncle (without the dignity to even process this news properly).  Without moving in with his Uncle, he risks being sent off to an orphanage.  Hugo then dedicates his life to fixing the automaton that his father did not fix.  In addition to the need to finish what his father started, he feels there is some bigger meaning that will reveal itself by fixing it.

As to why the drawings of this robot are so important to Melies, I will let movie fell in that detail, along with telling the rest of his story.  Melies was a real person, and you may look him up if you like.  Students of classic cinema already know who he is, and revealing his story will not necessarily spoil the twists and turns in the film, although I would prefer to not do so during this review.  However, I will offer this picture as a hint.  It is also a picture that is very relevant to the storyline of the film:

Photo from Wikipedia

  

This is one of those family films that adults and children can  watch together, and both will actually enjoy.  Although it may not be appropriate for small children (7 and under probably), Hugo is a film that is fun, adventurous, and quite friendly to younger viewers.   An example of this includes a chase scene through the station in the first few minutes of the film where Hugo is being hunted down by the Station Inspector (played by Sacha Baron Cohen), and his faithful sidekick, Maximilianus the Rottweiler.  By the end of the scene, your child will be probably be laughing out loud (you may be too) as Hugo makes his escape.

It should be noted that the Station Inspector, who is obsessed with tracking down thieving children and sending them off to the orphanage, comes off as the stereotypical children's story villain at first.  By this, I mean he is mean, unnecessarily authoritative, and seems to take at least some pleasure in making the lives of the young miserable (think of a villain from a Dickens novel).  The Station Inspector also has a leg brace, which come off as part of the joke in the opening chase scene and several proceeding scenes.  He even struggles to chase after Hugo due to his leg and the inconvenience of the brace.  

But as the film progresses, we learn that he is disabled because of any injury from "the war" (World War I), and he will never be healed again.  Here, we learn a lot about who the Station Inspector really is, and we begin to feel sympathy towards.  While it doesn't excuse the cruelty he gives towards young children, it at least explains it to a point.  Scorsese, through the Station Inspector, also seems to provide some important lessons to younger viewers on the disabled, as well as the true nature of people who act "bad" or "mean".  This may or may not be intentional, but kudos nonetheless, sir!

There are several different themes to this film which are quite relevant to the human condition that adults, and children to some extent, will be able to relate to.  One theme is human isolation, and the need for human connection.  Different individuals in the film, including Hugo, struggle with the desire to connect with someone else.  Hugo is able to fill the need for connection when he befriends Isabelle, who is also George Meile's Goddaughter.  Chloe (played by Chloe Moritz), is a perky young girl who relishes the fun and excitement she reads in the adventure novels she borrows from the train station library.  She offers to help Hugo out with his quest to retrieve the notebook, repair the automaton, and discover the secret behind her Godfather.  Through Hugo, she also finds friendship, as well as a fulfillment of her own desire to be adventurous.

Another important theme to the movie is the need to fulfill one's purpose, and the sorrow one feels when they are "broken", and cannot do this anymore.  It is similar to an athlete who is severely injured and can no longer play their sport, or musician who had broken his or her instrument and cannot afford a new one.  Like the automaton that Hugo is trying to fix, Melies is certainly broken and cannot fulfill his own purpose (I will not reveal what that purpose is in this review).  At one point, Hugo states something very important to this theme of when referring to the majesty and harmony of clocks and other gadgets:

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.

Those who are more spiritually minded will no doubt see religion and the purpose a person has bestowed upon them by a higher power.  Indeed, Scorsese is a devout Catholic, and such beliefs may or may not have gone into this part of the film.  Fair enough.  For those who are more skeptical of spiritual beliefs, such as myself, they should not fear this concept being brought up.  Even if you don't believe any God gave you a purpose, does it not stand to reason that it is human nature for one to feel they have something in life they feel skilled at and can use to help the greater good (for me, it is teaching and writing).  I will now digress from this topic before I delve further into a philosophical wormhole that I cannot escape.

Going back to the film, Hugo is exciting, emotionally-driven and slightly thought-provoking all at once.  This film is already receiving massive amounts of Oscar buzz, as it should.  The movie is well-acted (Kingsley and Butterfield both deserve consideration by the Academy for nominations), well-written (excellent story by John Logan and Brian Selznick) and well-directed, of course.  Martin Scorsese is capable of making a fabulous children's movie, which convinces me there probably isn't any type of film he couldn't make.  Perhaps next time Hollywood has a script for the next "out of this world" Sci-Fi flick, or that next big Romantic Comedy, someone should give Marty a call.

Highlight of the Day: 10/5/2011

At my full-time job, it seemed even crazier than usual, but there aren't really any interesting stories to share.  At my part-time job tutoring job however,I had a moment with a student that I would like to share.

I was working with a young girl in middle school, and she was telling me that in a book she is reading, a physically disabled boy was labeled by a doctor as an "idiot", and then hospitalized.  She said, "That is what they called them back in the old days.  Isn't that sad?" 

I agreed with her that is sad, but fortunately, we as a society have gotten a lot better with the way disabled individuals are treated.  She talked about her disabled cousin who is "slow" (I took that to mean he had an intellectual disability), and wondered if he would have been labeled an "idiot" back then (he probably would have).  She then said she wondered if he was autistic. 

With that statement, the conversation took a sudden turn into a new direction.  I was not upset with her as it is quite common for individuals who do not work with the disabled to make that mistake. I explained that an individual with autism doesn't mean that they have an intellectual disability, and that often times, their intelligence is as good as or better than everyone else. 

I didn't spend too long explaining the difference between autism and intellectual disabilities (regretfully, I used the term "mentally challenged with her, which I will try and not do again).  Also, I didn't go into other areas of conversation, such as the fact that many people with autism who do test "mentally retarded" on a normal IQ test may not be so because such tests are not generally suited for the communication issues that go along with autism.  For one, she is in middle school.  And also, we had to get back to the math work we were doing.

Since I am on the topic, here is a great little article by a woman named Sue Robin.  Sue is severely autistic, and back in 2003 (when she was in college), she wrote a short essay about autism myths, including the one that most individual with autism are intellectually disabled.  Here is an exert:

As a really autistic person I am definitely qualified to address the topic of myths about autism and mental retardation.  The first myth I would like to attack is that 75% to 80% of all people with autism are mentally retarded.  Some professionals have reduced that number to 50% because so many of the young children now being diagnosed have Asperger’s Syndrome or High Functioning Autism.  Seventy-five, eighty, or fifty – they are all wrong.  Those of us who don’t speak, or speak echolalically, are counted as retarded.  We also score in the retarded range of I.Q. tests, so it is reasonable that we are assumed to be retarded.  What we have found through use of Facilitated Communication is that these low functioning people have at least normal intelligence with lots of movement problems masking their intellect. 

I am a great example.  Without facilitation I still test as a retarded person because I can’t manipulate objects to pass a non-verbal intelligence test.  When allowed to type, which I can do independently, I can answer the same questions.  For example, when asked to put similar cards together, I couldn’t do it.  But when the cards were labeled A, B, C, D, etc., I was able to type which cards belonged together.  Clearly I understood the task and could answer correctly, but not in the standard way. 

It Gets Better

Photo of Mitchell Wilson from Huffington Post

Over the past year or so, the "It Get's Better" has garnered much attention to the issue of GLBT teens committing suicide after they were bullied in school.  It started out as a project to GLBT teens, but has seemed to morphed into a message for all teens who are bullied, regardless of their sexual orientation.  It is a wonderful message that more teens need to hear.

Above is a picture of Mitchell Wilson.  Mitchell was an 11-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy in Ontario, Canada who committed suicide after being beaten up and robbed by another student.  Mitchell was the previous recipient of bullying, and after the assault, he was so terrified of going back to school and running into that student that he took his own life.  More details on Mitchell's death can be found here, but there is so much to be disturbed about this story on so many levels.  It is more than just the fact that he was a young man who was bullied, and committed suicide.  It is the fact that Mitchell was so young (not even a teenager), the fact that he was physically disabled, and the fact he wasn't merely teased or pushed around, but violently assaulted.  There have been very few stories in my life that have made me as sick as this one. 

Certainly, bullying is an all too frequent part of school growing up.  Traditionally, adults have taken a nonchalance attitude towards it.  Some will say it's merely a case of "kids being kids".  Others see it almost as a right of passage, or it will make someone a stronger person in the long run.  I can't say there isn't a hint of truth in any of those assertions, but it doesn't mean that bullying is harmless, and it certainly shouldn't be tolerated by anyone (especially adults).  Fortunately, times have changed, and people are not starting to wise up to how damaging bullying can be.  Since I started my career as an educator a couple of years ago, I have always had a zero tolerance attitude towards bullying in my classroom.  Mitchell's story has only renewed my commitment to stand up to bullying.

Like so many others, I was bullied growing up.  I wasn't bullied or assaulted in the same fashion that Mitchell was (although I did take my share of physical abuse from peers).  And I am straight, so I was not picked on for my sexual orientation (although I was called words like a "queer" and a "faggot" on several occasions).  I was simply a social awkward young man who was trying to fit in where I could.  Middle school was the most miserable three years of my life because of bullying.  I remember it being a good day at school when I was only called a "faggot" once, and maybe flicked in the ear a couple of times.

Oddly enough, a number of the students who bullied me I considered friends for the longest time.  For a while, I thought that beating each other up and calling each other hurtful names were how friends treated each other.  By the time I left middle school, I figured out that wasn't how friends treat each other, and I had almost no self-esteem left.  Suicide never crossed my mind, although I was probably really close to that becoming an option in my mind.  I do remember thinking that no one would ever love me and my life would never amount to anything.  There was very little I felt I could do about my own bullying at the time, although if I had to do it again, I would have probably tried to seek out help from school counselors. 

When I entered high school, I decided I would keep my mind and energy focused on getting good grades so I could go to college, and get a fresh start.  The bullying situation, for the most part, got better for me as high school went on, although I know that for so many others, the torment of bullying gets only worse.  One major regret I do have is not standing up whenever I saw other students get bullied.  I didn't stand up because I didn't want to get singled out myself.  I was afraid I would somehow divert the attention of bullying to myself.  I now wish I would have stood up and said something.

I ended up graduating high school and going to college.  I have done so much with my life since then.  This includes graduating college, starting my career, having lots of great friends, and getting married to a wonderful wife.  While I won't say I don't ever think about all those years I was tormented with bullying, I now know that my teenage years, as hard as they were, are only a small part of my life.  For anyone reading this post who happens to be in school now and is being bullied (regardless why you are being bullied), I want to let you know that IT DOES GET BETTER.  Know that no matter how hard it feels right now, it will not always be like this. 

I would like to add something else, and I know this may be hard for you to do if you are being bullied.  Do not look at your bully with hate.  At my current position, I work with students who have sever behavior and conduct disorders.  The students I work with frequently bully other students.  One thing I can tell you about such students is that they aren't bad people, and they aren't naturally prone bullying others.  Often times, they come from broken homes, and lives of dysfunction.  They may even be the products of bullying themselves, except the bullies in their lives may not be peers, but members of their own family.  By no means am I trying to justify their actions, and I would not go as far to say that you shouldn't take it personally.  Just know that generally, bullying comes from a place of pain and torment on the part of the bullier.

If you are having trouble dealing with bullying, there are a number of great outlets that you can go to and get help.  For starters, there is your school counselor, but there is also the National Suicide Prevention Hot line (1-800-273-8255), as well as stopbullying.gov.  Please, don't hesitate to get help if you need it.