This movie is very confusing.

It seems that will narrate the childhood of Hugo Cabret, but then turns to the history of the automaton, to the history of cinema, to the history of cinema of Georges Méliès, to the history of the Méliès studio, to the recovery of the work of Georges Méliès.

At the end we realized that Hugo Cabret is not a typical character of cinema. He is a "function character". Cabret only fulfills the function of allowing the conduct of meta-language film as if it were true automaton of the film.

The real main character of the film is the cinema. The secondary character of the movie is the book. It is in a small book that Cabret's father takes notes on the automaton, is this book that connects the child to Georges Méliès, Cabret and girl go to a bookstore to get books, then go to a library and consult the book where is told the history of Georges Méliès, and through this book, come to film historian who will fix the old man. Another important secondary character in the film is the clock/time, which focuses on the characters' actions, they did what they consume and enhances and enables metalanguage.

Cabret ends up being seen what is in a dream during the confused narrative of this film that really deserves an Oscar: the Oscar of confusing script. Scorsese wanted to make a pretty picture, but only managed to make a picture so full of details and techniques that confuses the viewer.