Coraline (2009)
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Coraline Movie Review
Coraline is a 2009 animated fantasy horror film directed by Henry Selick and starring Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. It’s one of the essential animated horrors as well as stop-motion films.
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“He’s not drunk, Mom, he’s just eccentric“
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It follows a girl who is unhappy with her parents as she feels neglected by them so when she stumbles upon an alternate world where there are her other parents with button eyes, but nicer and more playful, she is so happy with them. Ultimately however, it all turns out to be a trap as the world holds a dark secret within it.
I found this story awesome for kids as it teaches them some very valuable lessons, very similar to what ‘Pinocchio’ did. The message here is that you should be happy with your parents as they are for the most part not as bad as you think they are. Plus it’s also a very refreshing take on a fantasy genre where the children get a great warning message how the fantasy worlds and magic they imagine isn’t and never will be real or possible.
But above all else, this is simply a wonderfully told story which has a message to it, but also has solid emotion and meticulous detail in its animation and world building in particular. It’s a very dark version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and also similar to ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ in that way. It’s still original though and very authentic in the button imagery and various great sets and designs.
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The characters are all rather good too. What I liked the most about the titular protagonist is how she isn’t brave enough and only went again to the alternate world when she simply had to in order to save her parents and all those lost kids. She’s a very realistic, so well portrayed kid who’s only undone by a very mediocre voice performance from Dakota Fanning unfortunately.
Teri Hatcher is so much better as her mother and of course the Other Mother who’s immensely creepy and such an awesome villain by all means. I loved all of her forms and her manipulative tactics. Both fathers aren’t as memorable and are too goofy, but Wybie is pretty likable and both of the old ladies are so funny with the dead dogs jokes being hilarious. I also loved Sergey and how he was a positively portrayed Russian character for once and a very endearing one too. And The Cat is obviously the best and most intriguing and ultimately most heroic character in the story and I loved how unexpected that was.
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Let’s talk about the animation. Yes, Coraline truly is one of the most beautiful and meticulous stop-motion works out there. The world building is superb and they so wonderfully created this Other World, but the animation itself is very polished and modern with the character designs all being very impressive with the shapes of the old ladies and the circus man being particularly interesting and different. Of course the button imagery is the creepiest in the film. I also loved the colorful, but darker palette in the flick along with the well utilized burlesque and circus scenes.
The pacing is very good despite a couple of those scenes with the sidekick characters being too long and unnecessary in their music. The humor definitely could have been better, but some moments still are quite amusing. The emotion is definitely there and I found the dialogue also pretty good, but not as great as the material demanded. The score’s wonderful itself whereas the direction and the script are both very polished. I found its horror elements very successful and it truly is one of the scariest animated films of all time.
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Coraline is Laika’s very first and still best film in my opinion as they progressively got worse unfortunately, but here Neil Gaiman’s source material was overly very strong and the stellar execution only further led to this film being a stop-motion classic which unfortunately came in the very best year ever for animation (2009), and thus ended up being the third best film of that year, after ‘Up’ and ‘Mary and Max’, but in any other year it would have been the best one.
With beautiful, very artistic stop-motion animation, superb world building and some great messages for children, Coraline also features some terrific chills and is definitely one of the scariest animated films of all time. It’s a meticulously detailed, wonderfully told, authentic tale populated with either endearing or very creepy characters. It still remains Laika’s finest achievement.
