Coraline (2009)

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Coraline

Coraline Jones moves into a new house with her absent-minded parents, and as she explores her new house, she finds a small, bricked-up doorway. At night, the door opens, and Coraline is discovers an alternate universe for her life. Everything is the same, but it’s better, and exactly how she wishes for her life to be. Yet, the more time she spends in the Other World living the life she dreams her life would actually be, the more dangerous the alternate universe becomes. As Coraline begins to realize that the perfect life is not without a catch, she is left to rely on her wits and bravery to save herself and her family.

From what I had seen of Coraline in commercials, I knew that the movie would be aesthetically beautiful. Coraline was directed by Henry Selick, who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, so even if the movie itself fell flat, at least I would be entertained by beautiful visuals throughout the movie. Thankfully, it never came to that. I enjoyed Coraline immensely, it was as visually pleasing as I had expected it to be, and the plot moved along at the perfect speed. The “alternate universe” storyline has been used before, but the story of Coraline was still unique and overall, it was a great movie. The fact that I could draw some parallels with Coraline and Alice in Wonderland certainly didn’t hurt, either!

The rest of this post is my opinion about the movie and contains spoilers.

I think my favorite scene in Coraline is the one where she is in the Other World and goes out to explore the garden. That scene is so beautiful! Some of my favorite flowers are bleeding hearts and snapdragons, and I love how they brought the snapdragons in the movie! That whole scene reminded me of the one in Alice in Wonderland where Alice sings “Golden Afternoon” with the flowers. The garden in Coraline was much fancier though, and it was really cool how from a bird’s eye view, the garden was planted in such a way that it looked exactly like Coraline’s face. Another favorite scene is the one where Coraline and Cat walked “around the earth,” I really liked how the pieces of the earth went into black and white and gradually fell away before re-appearing on the screen as the two returned to where they started from.

I also loved the Cat, and how he was the one who ultimately saved Coraline and helped her to destroy the key to the Other World. He also reminded me of the Cheshire Cat so much, particularly as he was disappearing and reappearing as he was climbing up and around the fallen tree as he and Coraline talked in the Other World. Even though Coraline was rude to him the first time they met, the Cat always had her back, which was really nice. However, I was very disturbed by Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s mermaid performance. I’m not sure what was going on there, other than the fact that, well, both Miss Spink and Miss Forcible should not have been wearing mermaid costumes, even if it was only stop-motion and not actual people. That scene was just weird. Also, I wasn’t really a huge fan of Mr. Bobinsky, but I loved Wybie’s earnestness and eagerness to help Coraline, even if she thought she didn’t need him.

The Other Mother scared the living daylights out of me, as she should. Like Coraline, I think I would have been in awe of the Other World if I stepped into such a fantasy land, but the horror of everything that goes on in the Other World is awful, just awful. As cool as I thought the gravy train and milkshake delivery by chandelier at dinner was, there was no way I could ever consider giving up all the things I complain about in every day life for that, particularly when it comes at such a high cost. No button eyes for me, thanks! Nothing is as it seems in the Other World, while everything in the real world is exactly as it seems, flaws and all. Honestly… the Other Mother’s severed hand crawling around in the real world as Coraline and Cat were trying to get rid of the key? The Other Mother was definitely a force to be reckoned with¹. I definitely hadn’t expected her to be as terrifying as she turned out to be, and even though I thought the Other Mother was beyond twisted, she definitely brought the element of horror to the movie.

Overall Rating: 9/10

1. Had the Other Mother been the Queen of Hearts, she would have simply shouted “Off with her head!” whenever she got angry at Coraline ;D [↩]

Tags: movies