REVIEW: A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (2011): Dir. David Cronenberg. Written by: Christopher Hampton, based on his play The Talking Cure, based on the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr. Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Vincent Cassel. Rated R (Some kinky sex). Running time: 94 minutes. 

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were masters of the human psyche so it should come as no surprise that their own unconscious minds were as subject to analysis as any of their patients’. The revolutionary field of psychoanalysis, referred to at the turn of the century as “the talking cure,” brought in a new era of self-awareness and its founders were perhaps more prone than anyone to scrutinize their every thought and desire.

A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg and adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own stage play, introduces Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) as he tests his “talking cure” on a newly admitted patient named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly), a ravenous young Russian woman prone to fits and spasms. In a single whirlwind session, he gets her to discuss her childhood experience being spanked by her father. The spankings, she confesses to Jung, excited her.

Enter Freud, played with dignified stoicism by Viggo Mortensen and rarely seen not smoking a classically phallic cigar. Jung visits Freud’s Vienna home to discuss their research and is thrilled to find an intellectual advisor with whom he can discuss his radical ideas. Freud takes him on as a mentor or rather, as Jung more explicitly describes their relationship, Jung takes Freud on as a “father figure.” Their friendship begins to wane, however, when Jung takes interest in subjects Freud dismisses as mysticism. Freud fears interest in a field such as telepathy will only fuel skeptics’ criticism of their work.

On these topics and others Freud and Jung engage one another and the film is loosely structured around a series of conversations between them and between Jung and Spielrein. Sometimes they discuss their ideas in speculative theoretical terms; sometimes they apply their theories to their own dreams and feelings.

The fun of these conversations is watching these historical characters influence one another, not only in their academic work but in their personal lives. A wonderfully slimy Vincent Cassel appears in a brief supporting role as Otto Gross, a psychiatrist Freud recommends stay with Jung for treatment. Gross is a married man and proud polygamist who sees no harm in sleeping with his patients. These so-called deviances, he explains to Jung, are simply part of the natural order of things. Why deprive yourself what you want? What your mind and body need? These persuasive ideas get Jung into trouble when Spielrein expresses interest in expanding their current physician-patient relationship.

Mr. Cassel also gets one of the film’s more audacious lines (and I paraphrase): “Perhaps the reason Freud is so obsessed with sex is because he isn’t getting any.” There are a number of moments like this in the film – a jolt of humor or an unexpectedly frank remark that reminds us of the unpredictable alchemy that occurs when two people interact. Too often historical dramas and biopics present their characters the way their public personas made them seem rather than allowing them to be vibrant, complex human beings as they are here.

The performances reinforce this. Mr. Fassbender’s Jung is a man of impeccable reserve but watch how a boyish excitement creeps into his voice when talking with Freud, or how emotionally vulnerable he becomes in Spielrein’s company. Ms. Knightley’s performance is a risky one; her facial tics and stuttering speech in the opening scenes are pronounced to an almost distracting degree but she pulls it off. Her choices are bold but consistent. In later scenes, after Spielrein has been treated, she still speaks with the cautious pace of someone who has no less than a dozen thoughts running through her mind and must sift through them to select the words that will reveal her true emotions the least.

Viggo Mortensen commands an austere presence as Freud, enunciating his words with the clarity and confidence of a man who does not think he is right but, rather, knows he is. This is Mr. Mortensen’s third consecutive collaboration with David Cronenberg (A History of Violence and Eastern Promises are the other two) and the pairing has thus far resulted in some of the best work of either’s career.

A Dangerous Method is rich with period detail and beautifully shot by Mr. Cronenberg’s longtime cinematographer collaborator, Peter Suschitzky. Mr. Cronenberg and Mr. Hampton also stay true to the period in more subtle ways. The film does not hesitate to explore sexual taboos of the era and makes reference to rising tensions between Aryans and Jews, including an odd premonition from Jung late in the film that seems to predict the coming World Wars. These unexpected wrinkles are what make the film so enticing. This is a succinct and relatively brief film (most of Mr. Cronenberg’s movies are) but leaves room for strange and pleasantly perplexing inclusions.

The ending feels anticlimactic at first but the movie never makes many major dramatic moves prior to this so a low-key finish is appropriate. The film is a study of relationships and the nuances and details of its characters’ interactions are what my mind continues to turn over days after seeing it.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/30/11

REVIEW: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011): Dir. David Fincher. Written by: Steven Zaillian. Based on the novel by Stieg Larsson. Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright, Yorick van Wageningen and Joely Richardson. Rated R (Language, sex and graphic violence including rape). Running time: 158 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the second film adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novel following the 2009 European box office hit, is a lean, brutal thriller both highly stylized and remarkably economical.

After a brief prologue the film kicks off with a blistering cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who also scored the film) and featuring a wailing Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on vocals. The movie builds off this initial burst of energy and proceeds to rocket down its dark, twisted path at a breakneck speed.

I should admit I had a strong familiarity with the plot prior to seeing the film, having only just recently watched the earlier Swedish version directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Considering the popularity of the source material, I imagine many others will have an even more intimate knowledge of this labyrinthine mystery than I. Still, I was surprised to find how involving the film was in spite of this, thanks in no small part to Mr. Fincher’s impeccable craftsmanship and Steven Zaillian’s lean, efficient script.

Information is doled out quickly and in the fewest words possible (and there is quite a lot of information to take in) but though the film is briskly paced, it is never hurried. I imagine Mr. Fincher and his editors, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, pared every scene down to its absolute essentials, which says something about the wealth of strong material here because the movie clocks in at 158 minutes.

Our navigator through this icy, depraved Sweden is Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a journalist for Millennium magazine who has been convicted of libeling a wealthy businessman, Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg). Blomkvist’s evidence, which accused Wennerström of financial and moral corruption, turned out to have been falsified, leading Blomkvist to believe he was the fall guy in an elaborate set-up. The damages from the lawsuit cost him his life savings and the controversy forces him to take a temporary leave of absence from the magazine, of which he is also a co-owner.

Amidst the fallout of the lawsuit, Blomkvist receives an invitation to meet with Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), an aging businessman who lives on the island, Hedestad. Henrik wants to hire Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet (Moa Garpendal), who he believes was murdered by a member of the Vanger family, all of whom live on the island, nearly forty years ago.

Blomkvist is understandably apprehensive but the price is right and once he begins his investigation it is clear he thrives on this sort of thing. Daniel Craig’s Blomkvist is a hard-edged and determined reporter and Mr. Fincher highlights the obsessive nature of investigative journalism. This makes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo something of a spiritual successor to Zodiac, Mr. Fincher’s 2007 film about reporters and police who sought the identity of the infamous Zodiac Killer for years.

No less obsessive is Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a computer hacker hired first by Henrik Vanger to do a background check on Blomkvist, then by Blomkvist to assist in his investigation for Henrik. Salander is an enigmatic figure; there is reference to a history of violence in her childhood and she proves herself more than capable of violence in the present but mostly her anger simmers under a stolid and beautiful face of Ms. Mara.

Because of her past, Salander is a ward of the state and must answer to a legal guardian in charge of her finances. The latest of these guardians is a despicable man (Yorick Van Wageningen) whose readiness to abuse his influence over her reveals unspeakable levels of depravity. (Some spoilers from here to the end of the paragraph.) The rape scenes are difficult to watch and Mr. Fincher does little to make them more palatable. He is careful though not to push the material into gratuitous exploitation, which is admirable since the story uses these scenes less to confront the seriousness of rape than to set the decidedly dark tone of Steig Larsson’s wicked world.

Even when the images onscreen are tough to watch, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is gorgeous to look at. Over his past few films, Mr. Fincher has perfected an impressive visual style and technical mastery. Shooting digitally allows him unparalleled control over every shot. Notice how his use of color saturation can cast a gloom over even the sunniest day or how striking and clear a scene taking place in near total darkness looks.

Mr. Fincher has a close team of people he works with, which results in an exceptionally focused film. New additions to that team are Mr. Reznor and Mr. Ross whose score for Mr. Fincher’s previous effort, The Social Network, won them an Oscar last year. Their music is versatile to Mr. Fincher’s needs; chugging guitars and synthesizers drive the action forward while Blomkvist and Salander investigate the case, and ambient noise ratchets up the tension in ways a traditional musical score could not have.

I have a few minor grievances regarding some of Mr. Fincher’s stylistic choices but I appreciate that he is a director willing to take risks. (In particular, the ironic use of a pop song in one of the film’s climactic scenes feels out of step with the rest of the film’s style.) I also take issue with the development of Blomkvist and Salander’s relationship but perhaps this is a point more for Mr. Larsson than Mr. Fincher.

These gripes are little more than nitpicking, however, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an exceptional modern film noir that arguably bests the previous (and very good) Swedish adaptation. The Sweden of Stieg Larsson’s story is not a terribly enticing vacation spot but for two-and-a-half hours David Fincher makes it a pretty thrilling place to be.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/29/11

REVIEW: Young Adult

Young Adult (2011): Dir. Jason Reitman. Written by: Diablo Cody. Starring: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson and Elizabeth Reaser. Rated R (Language and sexual dialogue). Running time: 94 min.

2 stars (out of four)

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a thirty-seven-year-old divorcee and ghostwriter for what she refers to as a “disturbingly popular” book series for tween girls. Her name appears not on the book jackets but in fine print on the inside title page everyone skips over. When a young bookstore employee declines her offer to sign a few of the store’s copies, she spitefully tries to autograph one anyway. She is desperate for some love and affection or at least some attention.

The books she writes are garbage but she doesn’t show much ambition to become a great literary author. For all her too-cool-for-that dismissal of the series, she even seems to take pride in them. She eavesdrops on teenagers’ conversations and works the overheard snippets into her writing.

Still, modest success is not enough for Mavis. She sloths around her apartment with her pet Pomeranian, which she mostly ignores, fueling herself with an endless supply of Diet Coke to get her through another empty day. She harbors depressive alcoholic tendencies for a number of vague reasons, one of which is her divorce but that seems to be pretty far in the past. Much more recent is the news that her high school sweetheart, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), has fathered a child with his wife (Elizabeth Reaser). This prompts Mavis to trek back to her hometown – a small Minnesota fishing town called Mercury – in the ignoble pursuit of breaking up Buddy’s marriage and reclaiming their now decades-old romance.

There she runs into Matt (Patton Oswalt), an old classmate who she fondly recalls by the nickname, “Hate Crime Kid.” A few jocks in high school, mistakenly believing Matt to be gay, jumped him in the woods and left him for dead, crippling him for life. Twenty years later, Matt is a social recluse. He works at a local bar but spends most of his time at home where he lives with his sister and paints action figures. He and Mavis strike up a friendship, mostly by wallowing in each other’s misery and getting blasted off whiskey from Matt’s home distillery. Mavis stays focused on the task at hand though, fearlessly hurtling down a path that cannot end well for her.

Young Adult reteams screenwriter Diablo Cody with director Jason Reitman, whose previous collaboration was 2007’s Juno. Striking a different note here, Mrs. Cody and Mr. Reitman seem to want Mavis to be at the center of a dark comedy but the script can never pull off the delicate tonal balance. The jokes are too on point, Mavis’s grand moment of self-destruction to carefully calculated, Mrs. Cody’s ostensibly poignant insights into her characters too self-satisfied.

Mavis feels too much like the creation of a screenwriter. She is the embodiment of a self-absorbed, snarky attitude but not really a person. We never get a proper sense of what brought her to her current depressed state or what keeps her in it. There is her divorce, I suppose, and the heartbreak of Buddy Slade but are we really meant to believe her emotional turmoil is the result of man troubles now years behind her? In the right writer’s hands, a mean, vengeful character can be a lot of fun. A petulant, whiny character, however, is another story.

Ms. Theron admirably portrays Mavis’s passive aggressive, self-deluding personality with subtlety even when the script is far from subtle. The same is true for Mr. Oswalt who has a genial presence in an underdeveloped role. Side players such as Patrick Wilson’s grown-up high school heartthrob are little more than objects adjusted to satisfy story requirements; Mr. Wilson’s role in particular feels like a pale imitation of his character from Little Children, a vastly superior film about suburban anxiety and unfaithful husbands.

Mr. Reitman, whose previous film, Up in the Air, had such a deft touch in depicting its characters’ social and emotional lives, does little to save Mrs. Cody’s weak script. The story meanders along without offering many notable details and fades quickly from the memory. Mavis is so self-absorbed she believes that what happened in high school is still important twenty years later. I, on the other hand, have a feeling I won’t remember her problems even a month from now.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/22/11

REVIEW: New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve (2011): Dir. Garry Marshall. Written by: Katherine Fugate. Starring: Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Héctor Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Seth Myers, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Hilary Swank and Sofía Vergara. Rated PG-13 (Some language and sexual remarks). Running time: 118 minutes.

1 star (out of four)

New Year’s Eve is like a commercial without a product to sell. Which is a shame, really, because it feels like a good opportunity for Ashton Kutcher to pose with his Nikon.

The movie follows more than a dozen different characters in New York City as they send off 2011 with no shortage of style or heartfelt monologues, mostly congregating in or around Times Square for the ball drop at midnight. The huge ensemble cast is a gimmick though, a stunt I will concede is impressive as an exercise in unabashed excess. “How will all these people ever fit in one movie?” we ask.

The simple answer is that they don’t, or at least director Garry Marshall and screenwriter Katherine Fugate are incapable of doing anything more with these actors than throwing them together in a jumbled, disorderly mess. The film cuts between its storylines with little narrative rhyme or reason; its scenes appear to have been ordered arbitrarily. The movie may as well have been edited by an iPod shuffle.

Mathematically speaking, cramming all these people into a single two-hour film means nobody gets much more than fifteen minutes of screen time apiece. (Feel free to check my math on that one.) A number of the minor characters receive considerably less. So as an actor strapped for time, you better spit out that expository dialogue quick before your scene gets cut short.

For expediency’s sake, it helps too if the storylines eschew originality and just borrow vague ideas and setups from romantic comedies past. Katherine Heigl is in Desperate Damsel mode (a cakewalk for her by now) as the head chef in possibly the least busy restaurant kitchen in movie history. Where else but in the Heiglverse does a professional caterer on New Year’s Eve have the time to throw a temper tantrum (and eggs) with her sous chef Sofía Vergara in between idle chats with a former lover played by none other than Jon Bon Jovi?

Zac Efron, meanwhile, helps Michelle Pfeiffer check off everything on her resolution list with a charm that might have made a young John Cusack (unfortunately not present) jealous. The handsome Josh Duhamel seeks to reconnect with a woman he met last New Year’s and agreed to meet again tonight at the same café. A typically frantic Sarah Jessica Parker struggles to keep her daughter Abigail Breslin from leaving the nest too soon. And Ashton Kutcher, a certified New Year’s cynic, gets trapped in an elevator with Glee star Lea Michele, who, fear not, is given ample opportunities to sing.

Robert De Niro appears as a man on life support, a bit of casting that feels like a cruel joke, and Halle Berry plays his nurse, refusing to allow his dying request to watch the ball drop from the hospital roof. In another strange pairing of actors, Hilary Swank grapples with her new position overseeing the Times Square festivities while her security officer, a comatose Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, stands around and provides occasional comfort. (Between this and his equally out-of-place appearance in No Strings Attached earlier this year, Bridges’s New Year’s resolution should be to find a new agent.) In a late-film appearance as a electrician, Héctor Elizondo nearly redeems the whole bloated affair but a prime opportunity for slapstick (he gets stuck briefly atop the ball) is left oddly untouched.

In perhaps the film’s most improbable storyline, an expecting young couple, Jessica Biel and Seth Myers, race to win a hospital’s $25,000 prize for birthing the first child of the New Year. These scenes have potential for screwball comedy but Myers, who has the acting chops of Jerry Seinfeld, and Biel don’t have a clue what to do with the material. As an eastern European man also vying for the cash prize, Til Schweiger gets a few laughs but the comedy is otherwise dead in the water.

All of these characters crowd the screen in competition for our affection but none are even half developed enough to elicit anything in the way of audience sympathy. The characters are so dull and lifeless I found myself wishing Ryan Seacrest’s cameo had been expanded into a full storyline. He at least understands how to make drivel pass as entertainment, having essentially made a whole career out of it.

The most revealing moment in the movie is in the end credits during the requisite blooper reel of line flubs and cast pranks. We see Jessica Biel in labor as her doctor (Carla Gugino) pulls out not a baby but a copy of Valentine’s Day (the similarly structured previous feature from Mr. Marshall) on Blu-Ray from Biel’s vagina. It’s a sort of perverse, self-congratulatory joke that makes me think Mr. Marshall has nothing but a cynical, bottom line attitude towards the whole production. The inevitable profit from this film’s box office and subsequent DVD release will no doubt sustain him until he pops out another holiday-themed piece of junk next year. So New Year’s Eve really is a commercial after all. And it doesn’t even have the decency to try and sell us anything.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/12/11

REVIEW: The Descendants

The Descendants (2011): Dir. Alexander Payne. Written by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash. Based on the novel by: Kaui Hart Hemmings. Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Beau Bridges. Rated R (Language). Running time: 110 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Hawaiians, we learn from George Clooney’s opening voice-over, do not live in paradise. They are as susceptible to life’s woes as any mainlander; the backdrop for those woes is just prettier on the islands. The beautiful vistas certainly do little to assuage the problems facing Matt King (Clooney) in The Descendants and director Alexander Payne is adept at evoking the irony of the emotional anguish of people in comfortable clothes.

After a speedboat accident leaves his wife in a coma, Matt King is left to parent his two daughters, the ten-year-old handful Scottie (Amara Miller) and seventeen-year-old troublemaker Alex (Shailene Woodley). Matt has little idea what to feed the two girls let alone guide them through such a difficult time. Scottie is at the impressionable age when passing phases are difficult to distinguish from issues that may one day require therapy and Matt looks desperately to his eldest daughter for help. She is no more stable but claims she will be considerably calmer with close friend Sid (Nick Krause) around. Sid is a surfer dude dunce whose one-note – “Sup, bro?” – personality proves inappropriate more than once as he accompanies the family on hospital visits and a trip to the home of Matt’s father-in-law (Robert Forster).

On the other side of Matt’s family is a host of cousins and extended family members who are on the verge of making a major decision. The Kings, descendants of Hawaiian royalty, own one of the last undeveloped patches of land on the islands and are looking to sell the property before the trust dissolves in seven years. The family has whittled the prospective buyers (mostly developers interested in constructing hotels and shopping centers) down to one, Don Hollitzer (unseen in the film) but as the deed’s trustee, Matt ultimately gets final say. The decision weighs heavily on him as his cousins, led by Hugh (Beau Bridges), pester him for an answer.

All of this would be enough for Matt to grapple with but the film throws one more problem his way. His wife was cheating on him, he learns, a revelation that spurs an inter-island investigation into her suitor’s identity that takes up most of the film’s midsection.

Mr. Payne seems attracted to stories of men reaching a turning point in their lives (Paul Giamatti in Sideways, Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt and, to a lesser degree, Matthew Broderick in Election) and paints an empathetic portrait of Matt at this particular mid-life moment. Clooney is a wise choice for the role; he finds the vulnerability of Matt while still bringing to the character the charm that comes with being George Clooney. His ability to lead an audience through the array of emotional turns a film like The Descendants takes is one of his strongest assets as an actor. He shifts between moments of human comedy and more somber scenes with ease, building an authentic character along the way.

Those who have seen Mr. Payne’s previous works will be familiar with the way humor, tragedy and righteous anger mix and blur into one another here. This particular blend works because the film has a keen understanding of human interaction – the way we fumble over verb tense when talking about a deceased or dying person, or what personal information we choose to give out to our various levels of acquaintances. Even as the plot progresses in carefully controlled and even predictable ways, the details of the script (penned by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, as well as Mr. Payne) and nuances of the performances ring true.

There are also a number of gorgeously framed shots – and not just of those scenic shorelines which are, of course, captured in all their splendor – that bring to life the emotional world of these characters. Everything comes together in the final scenes, a series of pitch-perfect moments between family that brings the film to a touching and poignant finish. If the film perhaps grazes over serious subject matters with a decidedly light touch, it also does not cheat. Matt’s complicated situation is acknowledged as such and the characters, in the somewhat limited sketches of their personalities, act honestly and believably. The film does not strike a false or cheap note.

The Descendants is a crowd-pleaser in the best of ways. It presents us with a collection of likable characters whose troubles are given humor without sacrificing honesty. Hawaii may not be paradise but is as gorgeous and charming a place as any to sort out your problems.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/7/11

REVIEW: Hugo

Hugo (2011): Dir. Martin Scorsese. Written by: John Logan. Based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Starring: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour. Rated PG. Running time: 127 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Director Martin Scorsese’s first foray into 3D, Hugo, appears on first glance to be a Spielbergian piece of family entertainment about an orphaned boy’s adventures in a 1930s Paris train station. The film, adapted from Brain Selznick’s award-winning book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is curiously both more than that first impression suggests and somehow a little less.

We first see Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) as he peers out at the station’s busy lobby from behind the face of a large clock. Through flashbacks we learn he is the son of a watchmaker (Jude Law in a brief cameo) who taught his son all about the inner workings of timepieces. Prior to his father’s death, the two were repairing an automaton, a small robotic man of extraordinarily intricate design Hugo’s father picked up at a museum. The machine is missing a crucial piece – a heart-shaped key – that Hugo’s father has drawn for reference in a small notebook Hugo later inherits.

Hugo then comes under the dubious care of his uncle (Ray Winstone in an even briefer cameo), a drunk who repairs the train station’s clocks and disappears almost as soon as he adopts the poor boy. This leaves Hugo to roam the station alone, dodging the watchful eyes of Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen), who has made it his purpose in life to catch stray orphans in the station and ship them off to some nondescript Dickensian nightmare or another.

Inspector Gustav is unaware, however, of the many ventilator ducts and behind-the-wall passageways Hugo calls home. From these hidden vantage points, Hugo safely observes the station’s population below him. (Richard Griffiths, Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer and Frances de la Tour each have a few scenes apiece as various proprietors in the station.) But it is Ben Kingsley as the owner of a toy shop who Hugo is most interested in and vice versa.

Hugo has been stealing toys from the shop not to play with but to disassemble for parts. When Papa Georgie, as his goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) calls him, catches Hugo red-handed, a mysterious and pensive look crosses the old man’s face at the sight of Hugo’s notebook. Does this look signify some mystery for Hugo and new friend Isabelle to solve? Some past secret from Hugo’s or Papa George’s life? A hint at the cause of Hugo’s father’s untimely death?

The mystery, without giving away too much, turns out to be a lesson in film history, which, I must say, I wasn’t expecting. That is not to say the film loses any of its charm as Martin Scorsese pays tribute to the silent era of cinema – these scenes are as visually inventive and whimsical as anything else in the film – but I wonder: To what degree will the film’s younger audience appreciate this sudden turn? Hugo is a bit overlong, especially considering that it is being marketed as a family adventure, and by its second half its gradual pacing begins to feel like the film is dragging its heels.

This is no fault of Hugo’s young stars though, who carry the film nicely. Asa Butterfield is a strong and amiable lead and Chloë Grace Moretz shows her range as the plucky bookworm. The adults stand by to support them and Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic timing looks to have cross-generational appeal (to both older and younger audiences than his typically raunchy, scatological characters attract).

The film’s 3D gives a number of shots an added layer of wonder but Hugo’s most visually appealing qualities – its muted colors, its meticulous set design – do not need the effect; they are enchanting enough on their own. So while Martin Scorsese’s first use of 3D is well executed, I cannot say it was worth adding $5 to the ticket price. This continues to be 3D’s biggest drawback. I’m willing to remain open to each filmmaker’s take on the technology but not at these prices.

Mr. Scorsese looks to be on-board with it though. By evoking the dazzling imagination and visuals of cinema’s earliest works, he argues that the movies have always been about the spectacle of technological innovation. I wonder if the film might have been more effective had it gone even bigger – more magic! more mystery! – and if it had more of its director’s characteristic vigor and energy. In its quiet way though, the film ever so gently reminds us of the movies’ ability to inspire wonder and to invent.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/1/11