The Film

The imagination is allowed to run rampant in Coraline, a spooky and satisfying gorgeous piece of stop-motion animation from Henry Selick, who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. The amount of work that goes into a project like this is absolutely staggering – the shoot apparently lasted for more than 18 months, with two years of pre-production before that – and the end result is a film that engages the mind’s eye thoroughly. The film provokes near-constant senses of both delight and unease; it’s not hard to imagine most younger children being terrified at this movie, but that dichotomy fits the themes of the film very well.

Coraline (Dakota Fanning) is a rather misunderstood little girl. Her blue hair makes her stand out against the dreary Oregon landscape where her family recently moved to from Michigan, and she has trouble getting her parents to pay attention to her. Her mom (Teri Hatcher) is worn out and haggard, and her dad (John Hodgman) is awkward and unaware.

At the Pink Palace apartments where her family now lives, Coraline finds herself surrounded by unusual characters – Wybie, a talkative boy who Coraline finds endlessly irritating, a pair of near-senile former performers called Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, a crazy circus man named Mr. Bobinsky, and a mysterious cat.

One day, while exploring her new house, Coraline finds a tiny door hidden behind the wallpaper in a spare room, but when she finally gets it open, it’s just a wall of brick on the other side. But at night, it’s a different story, and the door opens to a tunnel, leading her to a very similar house with familiar people who she is told are her “other mother” and “other father.”

Coraline seems to have stumbled upon an ideal world, as her other mother and father pay her a good deal more attention, and everything from the cooking to the gardening to the entertainment is far more grand in this colorful alternate universe.

Much to her disappointment, she wakes up in her own bed despite falling asleep in the other world several nights in a row. But eventually, she gets a chance to stay there forever. Of course, things might not be exactly as they seem.

Coraline is jam-packed with clever, cute and creepy cinematic touches; it’s the kind of film you want to watch twice in a row to catch it all. The story definitely borrows from a wide array of sources, but it’s so superbly executed with brilliant animation and music, it’s hard to consider that much of a flaw at all.

Article Author: Dusty Somers

Dusty Somers hails from Seattle, and is a journalism student at the University of Oklahoma. He enjoys spending time and watching films with his wife, and looks forward to their imminent return to the great Northwest.

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