Directed by Henry Selick

Based on Neil Gaiman‘s 2002 novella, Coraline follows the titular pre-teen into a dark, fantastical Other World hidden in her family’s home. Through the portal, she finds her Other parents — skillfully voiced by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman and creepily differentiated from her real mom and dad by their button eyes. Dakota Fanning, just 10 years old when she started voicing Coraline, shows unbelievable vocal control.

Stop-motion animation allows us to journey into an ethereal, strangely moving, stylized version of reality where characters like Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane) move in an impossible way and Miss Forcible’s boobs are twenty times bigger than any human frame could hold.

The plot

Coraline is a classic story in many ways — a hero’s journey. Coraline faces hardship, makes decisions that elevate her understanding of the world, and re-enters her reality with a lesson learned. The story feels at once far too much for any child to comprehend or enjoy and perfectly suited to children.

Random things to love about Coraline:

• The “What’s shakin’, baby” turtle in the Other World.
• The birds that fly around Coraline when she discovers the garden.
• Wybie’s slanted, oversized head. He’s perfect. He’s hilarious. He’s the best.
• Coraline’s reflection in her dad’s computer screen.

• Other Mother’s transformation from first to last scene.
• The ghost children.
• The adder stone / hag stone. Feel free to wander down that dark, deep rabbit hole.

Animation facts that are worth knowing

• Everything (like, literally everything…) was made by hand. The knit sweaters worn by the characters are not some kind of fabric that’s been made to look like knitting. They were legitimately knitted by a woman with needles the width of human hair.
• The natural elements (fire, fog, etc.) were also real. They were not CGI. They used dry ice for the fog and made the fire elements by hand and recorded them both against black backgrounds before digitally overlaying them into the scenes.
• There were 207,336 face combinations for Coraline and 17,633 for her mother. The 38 identical Coraline dolls took 10 people and between 3-4 months each to produce.
• This was originally going to be much more of a musical, and an entire album’s worth was recorded by They Might Be Giants. In the end, only one of the songs ended up in the film, and no one has heard the rest of the records. 👀

Final thoughts

Coraline is a seminal movie. It’s incredible.

This movie is good.

My rating: 5/5