Coraline (2009)

Although Tim Burton gets all the credit Henry Selick was the actual director behind The Nightmare Before Christmas.  While he may not be as immediately known as many other stop-motion animators I had been familiar with him due to his short film Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions, which had a soundtrack and voicework done by the Residents.  Since Nightmare he has worked on numerous stop-motion animated films and was a natural choice for Coraline once it was decided to not make it live action.  While CGI was used in a couple sequences and to remove some lines on the models this, like his previous films, was a painstaking years-long process that was more than worth the effort.

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) moves with her mom (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman) into an old house called the Pink Palace that has been divided up into apartments.  They share the property with Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French), a pair of retired burlesque actresses, and Mr. Bobinski (Ian McShane), a former circus acrobat.  Since her parents are busy with a deadline on a gardening catalog they have no time for her, and Coraline is upset about moving to the opposite end of the country and leaving her friends behind, although a local boy named Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.) tries to befriend her. 

While exploring the house she finds a door sealed behind wall paper and, when opening it, going straight to a brick wall.  However, at night, the door turns into a passage that leads her into a realm where she meets her Other Mother (Hatcher) and Other Father (Hodgman) in a world that seems to make all of her fantasies come true.  Wybie is silent, the neighbors put on amazing performances for her and her Other family has time to spend with her.  Of course, not is all as it seems.  A cat (Keith David) that travels between the two worlds befriends Coraline, who soon becomes aware that the fantasy world is all a trap set by the Other Mother.  When she kidnaps Coraline's parents a game ensues to rescue them and the souls of other children she has lured, with Coraline's own freedom on the line. 

My generation had movies like Watership Down that adults plopped us down to watch because, since it was animated and has talking animals, it must be for kids.  We also, as young adults, had the benefit of many of Burton's and Selick's films to entertain us through the 1990s.  I would say for young Millennials and Gen Z Coraline was the film that suddenly opened up a realm of dark fantasy.  If the parents were my age I'm sure they were delighted by this as too much children's programming has always been condescending and cloying no matter what generation. 

Coraline is based on a novella by Neil Gaiman, but Selick heavily modified the story to stretch it to a feature film.  It was supposed to be live action with Dakota Fanning in the lead role, and she was kept once it was decided to animate it.  It was also supposed to have musical interludes with the score by They Might Be Giants, which may have been interesting.  One song kind of remains that the Other Father sings while at a piano, but those elements were removed to concentrate on the story.  The result is Selick, in getting to work on what is pretty much his own project rather than someone else's, revisits some of the ideas from Slow Bob, which coincidentally happen to be similar to Coraline.  It's not as strange as his original short but it has many of the same beats.

It also has plenty of memorable images, from Coraline seeing the truth of the Other Mother's world to the ultimate true form of the creature that is trying to entrap her.  There are horror elements, some typical fantasy sequences and a number of other elements one would find in a children's film.  Why Coraline has endured is that it still provided an exciting story that adults could enjoy while also slipping in the "grass is greener" message subtly enough under the main story.  Those who saw it as children can still enjoy it as adults, the same of which can be said for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Selick's other '90s classic, James and the Giant Peach.

This was the first time I had seen it since children's movies these days fly far under my radar unless it is something like this that has a bit more appeal.  I am glad I finally watched it and even happier that I enjoyed it.  Selick has definitely not lost his touch when it comes to bringing these animated worlds to life and I appreciate any animator that still works with largely with stop-motion or traditional cell animation in a day when plugging everything into a computer is easier.  It's pretty much the difference between listening to music that is made with AI versus real musicians.  The love and reverence for the art and the material comes through.

Coraline (2009)

Time: 100 minutes

Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Keith David, Robert Bailey Jr.

Director: Henry Selick