Movie Review: Coraline

Coraline (2009) 

Directed by Henry Selick 

Written by Henry Selick

Starring Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgeman, Jennifer Saunders 

Release Date February 6th, 2009 

Published February 6th, 2009 

The nightmare dreamscapes of director Henry Selick are stirring visual delights. His Nightmare  Before Christmas is an unqualified underground classic. Now comes Coraline which combines the talents of Henry Selick with those of legendary graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, is yet another triumph.

Coraline Jones is a dyspeptic little girl. Her bad attitude comes from having left behind close friends in Michigan for the gray skies of middle of nowhere Oregon. There, her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgeman) have little time for playing with their daughter.

This forces Coraline to find distraction on her own, wandering around her huge house with highly unusual neighbors upstairs and down. Above we have Mr. Bobinsky a drunken former circus performer who claims to be training mice for their own circus. Downstairs are a pair of doddering former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French) who are a little too devoted to their dogs.

Outside the house Coraline meets Wyby (Robert Bailey Jr) who is as creepy as any one of the neighbors but he being the only person her age for miles, he is a de facto friend. If you think the neighbors are weird you have seen nothing yet. Exploring the ancient house, Coraline discovers a small door that during the day is bricked up but at night opens to a magical tunnel to an alternate universe.

In this other world Coraline finds parents who are attentive and playful. Mr. Bobinsky real is training mice for a magical circus and Miss Spink and Miss Forcible perform an astonishing reading of Shakespeare for an audience of Coraline and hundreds of dogs. Even other Wyby is better, probably because he can't talk.

All of the others, mom and dad, the neighbors, Wyby and even Coraline's toys have one signature difference, they all have buttons for eyes. Nevertheless, this world is magical and fun and when her other parents offer her the chance to stay in the other world forever, Coraline is excited to accept until she is told she will have to sew buttons over her eyes to stay.

From there Coraline goes from visually dazzling kid flick to a dark childish nightmare. Henry Selick fearlessly plumbs the depths of childish horrors as he makes Coraline's real parents disappears and introduces some child ghosts who offer a terrifying fate to Coraline if she can't find a way out.

Neil Gaiman wrote Coraline for his young daughter as a way of helping her deal with the monsters under her bed. He wanted to teach her to be brave and at the same time explore some of his own childhood nightmares. The result when teamed with Henry Selick's astonishing stop motion visuals is a knockout visual feast with resonant themes.

Dakota Fanning gives great voice to Coraline. Communicating petulance and downer whining early on, her Coraline slowly becomes self aware and brave. She becomes a minor hero before our eyes and it is the voice of Dakota Fanning that carries throughout.

Coraline is an optical delight. The visual splendor, the astonishing attention to detail and the amount of work we know went into making Coraline all add up to an astonishing achievement and the first truly great movie of 2009.