Hugo (2011)

When evaluating a film, I do my best to consider the intent of the filmmaker and their intended audience. I wouldn't hold the characters of this film to the same kind of standards I would in The Thin Red Line for instance. I believe the intent of Martin Scorsese was to tell Hugo's story of loss, imagination, and salvation in children's terms, much as how the book did so. So, the people in the story are more austere or more fat or more tender than they would be in a typical drama. It's also a classic happy ending which is rare these days among the film elite.

Hugo is a beautiful film with outrageous camerawork and flamboyant characters. These drew me into the title character's tragic circumstances and into the era of discovery that was Paris in the 1930s. The despair throughout the film made the ending all the sweeter.

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