Henry Selick’s Coraline the movie was modern and funky, beautifully animated with a stop-motion technique that took the production crew over five years to create. Every frame and every detail of the film was loaded with hand-crafted goodness. This fable, hauntingly eerie and whimsical, reminds us that all that glitters is not gold.
The adventure begins when Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning, The Secret Life of Bees) is told by her unsympathetic, over-worked parents to leave them alone and count all the windows and doors. Coraline discovers a small door and the movie instantly turns very Alice In Wonderland meets Twilight Zone.
That night, much like our dear friend Alice, Coraline follows a furry animal to the small door and finds a tunnel. She crawled through the “rabbit hole” and emerged in a world that appeared to be a brighter, better, and a more lovely parallel to the world from which she came. It was complete with Other Mother (Teri Thatcher, Desperate Housewives), a character complete with button eyes, who catered to her every need and gave her tons of attention. There were better neighbors, animated stuffed animals, delicious feasts, and garden plants that spoke to her. But there was also something rotten in the state of Denmark.
The movie at this point is wondrous and bubbly, until Coraline discovers Other Mother has Other Motives. She wanted to keep Coraline forever, and asked that Coraline only need sew buttons into her eyes to do so. Once Coraline refused, Other Mother transformed into another Thing (skeletal, gray, horrible posture, and extremely harsh angles) and closed Coraline into a mirror where ghost children with button eyes (previous victims of Other Mother) told Coraline their sad tales and asked her to find their eyes so that their souls could be freed.
In every movie there are heroes and antagonist. This movie is unique in the fact the Coraline creates her own antagonist in her own discontent with her real life. Other Mother, in other words, can be seen as is an incarnation of Coraline’s discontent with reality. One could say it was this dissatisfaction that lead to the creation of Coraline’s nightmarish encounters.
Eventually, to rescue her stolen parents whom she finally appreciates (as well as the lost souls of the children with buttons for eyes), Coraline must look beyond the counterfeit and find the real among the fantasy.
The story of Coraline’s disillusionment reminds us of many things. The grass in the Other World may have been greener, but its attempt to eat our young protagonist re-qualifies the normal grass as “better”. Coraline may have wished for parents who catered to her every need; however, the reality of this, with parents so loving they squish the life out of her, isn’t exactly a dream come true.
Coraline was a dark and fascinating gem for any individual looking for an entertaining way to spend two hours. This work glitters like gold and I strongly recommend it.
