Coraline

I had never seen this film which is an adaptation of another Neil Gaiman book, but I had seen the trailer and I had gotten curious. So I bought the movie on DVD (when it came out on DVD) and after I had watched it, I love it. The film is made in the stop-motion animation by Henry Selick, the director of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas...though I not really interested in that film.

In the film, Coraline Jones and her parents, Mel and Charlie move from Pontiac, Michigan to Ashland, Oregon in the Pink Palace Apartments, which is a converted mansion that they share with retired actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and retired Russian circus performer Mr. Bobinsky. Coraline's parents are busy working on a gardening catalog, which leaves them with little time for Coraline.

On a walk with a dousing rod, Coraline meets Wybie Lovat whose grandmother grew up in the house, and a cat that Wybie says is feral. They find an old well on the hill above the house. Wybie is a little surprised that his grandmother agreed to rent to the Joneses; usually she tries to find tenants without children. Later, Coraline's mother gives her an old ragdoll that Wybie brought over. A note says that he found at in his grandmother's old chest. The button-eyed doll looks strikingly like Coraline. He also tells Coraline that his grandmother had a twin sister who disappeared as a child, and that he's never been inside the house. Later Coraline finds a small locked door that had been wallpapered over, and when she insists her mother unlock it, she is surprised to find nothing but a brick wall.

That night, Coraline is awoken by the sound of mice, and follows their trail to the small door. Opening it, she finds a passageway instead of the brick wall, and crawls through it. On the opposite side, she finds herself in the "Other World," which is inhabited by button eyed doppelgangers of her parents. The "Other Parents" seem to be much warmer and attentive than Coraline's real parents, particularly her "Other Mother," who does everything she can to impress Coraline. Coraline continues to return to the Other World and is entertained by "other" versions of Wybie and the neighbors.

Over the course of several nights, Coraline spends time with the fantastical Others, but when she falls asleep, she finds herself back in her normal world. Coraline's attempts to compare her normal world with that of the Other World raises tension between her and her mother, who slowly tries to be more affectionate to Coraline. During her third visit, she is warned by the black cat, who can warp between worlds but can only talk in the Other World, that not all is as seems in the Other World and to be careful. That's all I could tell you folks, you will have to see the film for yourself how it ends

I am thinking of reading the original book...I know that is a bit unorthodox but that's me. This is an awesome movie, very well written, and the animation is excellent. The story was perfectly funny and full of suspense. I don't have a favorite scene (as I said many times), because I love the whole film - from beginning to end.

This movie is very well-made. The animation is amazing! It is a great choice for a movie night with the family. Highly recommended!

Nobody can drench a book in creepy, dank atmosphere like Neil Gaiman, infused with humor and more than a little horror.

Fortunately that flavour is kept alive in the movie adaptation of "Coraline," brought to life by the talented Henry Selick. It's a haunting little dark fairy tale full of decayed apartments, dancing rats and eerie soulless doppelgangers, as well as a gutsy heroine who finds herself in this ominous "other" world.

Newly moved into an aged apartment, Coraline (Dakota Fanning) is bored. Her parents are too busy to do anything with her, and her neighbors are either insane or boring. The one exception is Wybie, a boy who annoys her no end.

It's the sort of relentlessly dull world that any little girl would want to escape from -- until Coraline does. She encounters a plastered-up door and a colourful wormhole, leading to a doppelganger of new home. In fact, it's so similar that she has a button-eyed "other mother" (Teri Hatcher) and matching "other father," (John Hodgman) as well as great food, games, a shimmering magic garden, a chorus of circus rodents and magic toys.

At first Coraline is fascinated by the other world, especially since her other parents are as attentive as her real ones aren't. Then she finds her real parents sealed inside a mirror. With the help of a sarcastic cat, Coraline ventures back into the other world. But with her parents and a trio of dead children held hostage, Coraline's only hope is to gamble with her own freedom -- and she'll be trapped forever if she fails.

Neil Gaiman's book "Coraline" is a brilliant dark fairy-tale vibe -- decayed apartments, dead children, spiderwebs, beetles, disembodied hands, button eyes, and an insectile button-eyed woman who wants to claim Coraline for herself. It's a fairy tale world that turns into a nightmare realm where souls are lost and horrific things scuttle in the shadows.

Most directors would turn the story into a cutsy, unscary affair... but not the director of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach." Instead, Selick gives it a dark, cobwebby atmosphere, brilliant colours and surreal details (the button eclipsing the moon). And it's full of lovely details that could have been silly (the creepy-crawly claw hand) yet work brilliantly.

The story starts off as merely surreal, but grows more ghastly and eerie as the movie unwinds -- and in the last third, the slow-moving story suddenly spins into a thoroughly spooky territory, and a truly terrifying climax where the Other Mother shows her true self. And along the way, there are plenty of wonderfully creepy moments -- the three ghosts in a rotting bedroom/mirror, the offering of buttons and thick black thread, weird circus acts, and much more. The horror is subtle, the delicious creepiness is not.

Coraline -- the Alice in this Notsowonderland -- is a wonderful little heroine: strong, sensible, self-sufficient but still fairly freaked out about what is happening around her. Normally I'm not crazy about Dakota Fanning, but voice-only she's quite good in this role.

The sarcastic cat is a wonderful counterpoint, and the movie's original character Wybie makes a nice companion (albeit an extraneous one). And the other mother is the stuff of nightmares -- she's utterly inhuman and merciless, and by the movie's climax she's become the stuff of nightmares. Oh, and French and Saunders make a pair of fun cameos as the kooky neighbors.

"Coraline" is a brilliantly dark little movie, full of dark magic and eerie creatures -- definitely for fans of Gaiman, dark fantasy and really creepy stuff.