Coraline - Animated Film by Henry Selick

Wonderful Fantasy by the Director of The Nightmare Before Christmas

Aug 8, 2009

An animated film that may disturb and delight children in equal measure, as Coraline travels to another world where her Other Mother awaits her.

Young Coraline (Dakota Fanning) moves into an old Victorian-style house with her mother (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman). Both are writers desperate to finish the gardening catalogue they are working on together and regard Coraline as a nuisance. While out playing in the woods Coraline meets a local kid called Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr), who rides around on a pushbike in a funny outfit and owns a mangy black cat.

Coraline Meets her Other Mother

Coraline is given a gift by Wybie, a doll resembling her own appearance. Coraline suspects Wybie had the doll made, but he insists he found it in his Grandmother’s house. At home her parents work on separate computers leaving Coraline to explore the house. She finds a secret door leading to an alternative version of her house where her Other Mother cooks beautiful meals and her drab father is transformed into a fun guy. So taken is Coraline with this brighter fun-filled world she has discovered, she ignores the disturbing fact they have buttons instead of eyes.

Henry Selick used stop-motion in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996) to remarkable effect. With Coraline Selick mixes the old with the new filming stop-motion in 3D for the first time in a feature length movie. The results are beautiful and it is easy to see why Coraline is enamoured of her Other World when it is filled with colour and warmth. Like all the best fairytales Coraline combines wonder and dread in equal measure as Coraline’s perfect world reveals its darker side.

Missing children or children finding a secret world hidden away behind an ordinary object are common themes in fairytales. Coraline’s Other World gives her everything she feels she needs to make her life better, but blinds her to potential harm she faces. Fairy tales were designed as warnings, to instruct youngsters in the ways of the world while delighting them with fantasy. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz Coraline learns the value of home, while also proving her own independence.

Composer Bruno Coulais provides an eerily enchanting soundtrack in which children’s voices provide a melodious sense of innocence while the instrumentation suggests menace. The opening titles alone are chilling, showing a doll being torn to pieces and then rebuilt in Coraline’s image. Coraline may well haunt the dreams of children and adults alike for many years.

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