"Come and dream with me." Georges Méliès is back to his old glory, and invites everyone else to bask in it.
Before that, Méliès getting a standing ovation and telling the crowd, "I am standing in front of you tonight because of one very brave young man, who saw a broken machine and, against all odds, he fixed it. It was the kindest magic trick that ever I've seen." The machine has a double meaning, one about the automaton, and the most important one is about himself.
When the Inspector pulls Hugo from the tracks as the train is approaching and lets him go after Hugo reminded him that Gustave himself was an orphan.
Hugo literally bumps into Monsieur. Labisse, causing him to drop his books. Hugo carefully dusts off The Adventures of Robin Hood, the one his father used to read to him. Msr. Labisse (who up to then had been stern towards Hugo) smiles and says that the book had been intended for his godson, but instead ought to go to him. Hugo's delighted face says it all.
When Monsieur Frick (the newspaper seller), solves the problem of the yippy dachshund who'd been thwarting his efforts to flirt with Madame Emile (the cafe owner) by bringing another dachshund for the first one to play with.
When Georges Méliès essentially adopts Hugo at the end when he tells the Inspector "He belongs to me."
During the screening of "Voyage to the Moon," Isabelle remarks on how beautiful Jeanne was. Georges reveals himself by saying "She still is."
Inspector Gustave's scenes with Lisette can be this too, in part for showing just how vulnerable the former really is.
Gustave: "You see, I was injured in the war, and it will never heal. Good evening, mademoiselle." *turns to leave*
Lisette: "I lost my brother" *inserts a flower on his tunic*
While it's mostly Played for Laughs, the resolution of the subplot of the police officer's runaway pregnant wife is this — she returns to him, he decides the baby's his, and the Station Inspector is asked to be the godfather.
Not only does Inspector Gustave attend the party at the end of the film, but he mentions that Hugo was responsible for designing the new mechanism for his injured leg.
Tabard getting to meet his idol again — you can see his joy throughout his face. Also the flashback where the busy man took a few moments to speak to him as a child.
"Once upon a time, I met a boy named Hugo Cabret...[this book] is about how that singular young man searched so hard for a message from his father, and how that message led him all the way home."
The film closes on a close-up shot of the automaton sitting at a desk in the moonlight, and it might be a trick of the light, but it looks an awful lot as though it's smiling at us.
