Coraline (2009)

From the man who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas comes an eerie tale of a girl who wanted more out of her life and in return had to pay a heavy price. A motion picture that’s sure to stop you in your tracks and make you think about the things you once took for granted.

Coraline Jones (voiced by Dakota Fanning) has just moved into a new house located in Oregon after living a happy life in Michigan. She sets out to explore the property and land that surrounds the place and meets Wybie, a talkative boy who lives with his grandma in a neighboring house. After coming home, her mom (voiced by Teri Hatcher) gives her a doll that looks just like her with a note from Wybie on it. She suspects him of deliberately making the doll look like her but he confesses that he found it in his grandma’s trunk chest. With her mom and dad concentrating intensely on their business goals and apathetic to her requests, she explores their home and discovers a mysterious little door hidden behind the wallpaper in one of the rooms. She is absolutely restless in her attempt to get to know what wonderful world lies behind it and one night she finally finds out. It is a mirror image of where she currently lives except for the fact that everything is much more amusing and fun for a girl such as her. The only catch is if she wants to stay in this world forever, she must sew buttons into her eyes like the rest of the people living there. Once refusing to do this, the Other-Mother imprisons her and warns her that she will stay here forever if she doesn’t sew buttons into her eyes. The Other-Wylie, who can’t talk, rescues her and sends her back to the real world. The only problem is her real parents are nowhere to be found, which hints at the possibility of the inevitable. Coraline must go back to the dream world and rescue her parents so she makes a deal with the Other-Mother that if she finds the eyes of the other children that were lured into her trap, her parents, the spirits of the children and herself will be free. Will Coraline face up to the challenge and realize that her real parents are better than any other, or will she lose the game and share the fate of the other children before her?

First of all I absolutely loved that this film is so unconventional in style to so many other children’s films. It’s almost like a toned down horror film that lets children with an eye for scares get a taste of what a real horror film may be like. The characters are unforgettable, the score is perfect and the animation is eye-blowing. The shivers that go down your spine are no joke and the whole dark gothic look of the production emphasizes the frightening quality of the dream world and how it transcends its dark magic to the real world. I was really drawn to the elaborately put together outfits of the characters and how they made them so tiny yet compatible and stylish for the individual character. The Other-Mother’s dresses were absolutely extreme and every time she lost a layer of cordiality, a new layer of dress came on that made her look rigid and terrifying in the eye’s of the viewer but at the same time revealing her true colors. As far as the characters go I wanted to get to know a little bit more about the Other-Mother because she is such a secretive creature and the film didn’t really explain why she turned out the way that she did. Did she lose a child of her own or something entirely different? We’ll never know for sure, but I think that aspect would have made the film a complete to a much bigger extent. After finishing this film you would definitely feel like it should have been a little bit longer. The supporting characters were definitely whimsical and out-of-this-world, but some of the Russian Mr Bobinsky spoke was a little off.

I have to say that the message of the film is rather simple and has been done before, but the little twists and turns are what make this film truly unique. In the end she realized that there is nothing better than her real parents and the people who are there in person as opposed to how you want to see those people. You can’t have what you want all the time, so hopefully Coraline understands the different personalities and difficulties other people have and she’s got to learn how to be harmonious with them and her surroundings. Life brings many changes your way and some may be unfavorable or pleasant but you have to make it work to your advantage. It happens to everyone, but it was definitely beneficiary for Coraline to experience it while she is young. Like the slogan says, “be careful what you wish for”, because after a while it may not be what you want entirely and you will regret it. Just be content with what you have and you will find that your life is the dream you want to live.

Overall, it’s a darker fantastic, distorted version of Alice in Wonderland and brings back some of the magic that drew people to Henry Selick’s previous films. The film might also remind people of the wild productions that Tim Burton staged such as Corpse Bride and his rendition of Alice in Wonderland. Definitely one of the top films on the stop-motion film charts and would delight anyone who is a fan of Selick’s work and the genre it falls into.