Coraline

I love stop-motion animation, better than any other type. There's something about the original King Kong or one of the classic fantasy films that Ray Harryhausen did the special effects for (Jason and the Argonauts, etc.) that makes them look unlike anything else. They have such a strange, other-wordly quality to them. In recent years, I've become a huge fan of Aardman Studios, particularly their Wallace and Gromit series. And let us not forget Tim Burton, who has experimented in various ways with stop-motion animation in several of his films. Now comes this new movie, Coraline, based on a novel (and graphic novel), neither of which I've yet read. But I think it won't be long. Not only is it an amazing film (I did not see it in 3-D, but it didn't matter), it illustrates one of the most interesting ironies of recent filmmaking--how animated films can somehow seem more expressive and human than most live-action films. If you have an explanation of this phenomenon, please let me know. And if you haven't experienced it yet, I think Coraline will provide you with a pretty good introduction.


CORALINE

Alternate realities are tempting to think about, it’s pretty safe to say. Haven’t we all indulged in fantasies about what our lives would be like if we could change just one thing, or a few things—or maybe everything? The new animated film Coraline poses this question, then answers it with devilish complications. A fractured fairy tale with a deliciously perverse sense of humor, Coraline is nominally about childhood and its discontents but is really about the discontents we all have that merely started in childhood. Parents will want to take their children to see it because it is an animated film, but they’ll most likely be rocking them to sleep for weeks to come if they do. This is one “kid’s” film that Mom and Dad might want to see alone. It’s a tale told through a glass darkly, a triumph of the kind of imagination that animates the grimmest of Grimm’s cautionary tales about being tempted by the wrong choices.

Coraline Jones is the unhappy young daughter of unhappy parents, writers for a gardening publication who despise actual gardening. They move Coraline to a run-down rooming house in the country so they can immerse themselves in the peace and quiet they need to do their work. Of Coraline they have little thought, other than that she distracts them from making their deadlines. Perpetually harried and crabby, Mr. and Mrs. Jones are not bad parents, just overworked and ineffectual ones, unable to find the proper balance between their careers and parenting. Their bored and lonely daughter entertains herself by visiting her eccentric neighbors and exploring the grounds and the interior of the decaying mansion she unwillingly occupies. Until, that is, she finds a mysterious door in the wall of one of the rooms--then the house takes on fascinating possibilities. Bricked up by day, at night the door magically opens onto a parallel world, one in which everything in Coraline’s life seems greatly improved. There her parents are successful, happy, attractive, and interesting. And very, very attentive to her. In short, her entire world is transformed from drab and dysfunctional into an exciting and nurturing environment, where she is loved and amused in exactly the way she yearns for. The kindly couple invite her to stay and live with them permanently, instead of just visiting at night, and it is an offer that it would seem impossible for Coraline to resist.

But this wouldn’t be a fairy tale if there weren’t a catch. There’s a catch. Maybe it has something to do with the buttons sewn over her new mom’s and dad’s eyes…. Repeated nighttime visits to this seemingly ideal family make Coraline begin to suspect that there’s an ulterior motive to their kindness, and that maybe things aren’t quite as wonderful in this alternate world as they appear. No surprise in that--wouldn’t be much of a movie if they were. But from this point on, the intensity with which Coraline explores its kinship to nightmare is surprising, as well as both thrilling and disturbing--giving emotional life to the duality behind the film’s structure and theme.

Fortunately, little Coraline--as voiced by wunderkind Dakota Fanning--is a wise and plucky heroine, completely up to the challenges the story throws her way. It doesn’t take her very long to tumble to the false promise of her wish-fulfillment world; in fact, she seems wary from the start, never completely seduced. And when she finally learns that her charming new home is a deadly trap not just for her but her true parents as well, her adventurous spirit blossoms into the resourcefulness she needs to rescue them all from a terrifying fate. Fanning perfectly captures Coraline’s contrary nature--her combativeness, her stubborn streak--but also her hurt and the essential sweetness carefully hidden behind a protective layer of tomboy cool. More excellent vocal work comes from Teri Hatcher as the two Mrs. Jones. Skillfully negotiating the transformation of her character from the tired, unwittingly neglectful mother in the real world to the scheming, ultimately abusive Other Mother, Hatcher manages to make each distinct and yet obviously related, two manifestations of the same personality. Her Other Mother is not wholly villainous, despite her villainy; Hatcher successfully conveys the vulnerability and desperation the two women share, despite their diametrically opposed deeds.

For years, animated films--the stop-motion kind, like this one, or those with computer-generated imagery--have been among the most sophisticated and inventive movies being made. Coraline continues this trend, and may even have raised the bar somewhat. Adapting Neil Gaiman’s 2002 book and the subsequent graphic novel, writer-director Henry Selick (Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas) draws upon a rich store of imagery from horror films--the Old Dark House, the creepy neighbors, the vaporous line between waking and dream--as well as a Dr. Seuss-like menagerie of mad contraptions to create a stunning, kaleidoscopic universe that’s part Gothic landscape, part circus, part delirium tremens.

But Coraline is not merely a visual tour-de-force; it’s anchored by a strong, archetypal story that speaks to the kinds of fears which unsettle us all: fears of abandonment, of not being loved, of life becoming a disappointment. Like another young, dissatisfied heroine embarking on a perilous journey to find her heart’s desire, Coraline discovers her “dream” world to be a bright illusion masking terrors more real than those she left behind, and must employ wisdom, courage, and a newfound love for those at home to find her way back to them. The parallel to The Wizard of Oz may be obvious, but I was reminded also of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, and his wish to lead a life completely other than his own. The nightmare that nearly envelops him teaches him to embrace his own world, flawed as it is, and rededicate himself to making it better. In Coraline, a tiny puppet heroine completes this life-changing journey there and back again, as well--probably a journey we all need to make, in our own time, in our individual ways.