released 01 jan 10 / last mod 01 jan 10 / greg goebel / public domain
* At the beginning of CORALINE -- a stop-action animation movie, directed by Henry Selick and based on the novel of that name by fantasist Neil Gaiman -- we meet Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning), a girl who has just moved from the Midwest with her mother and father (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgeman) to rainy western Oregon, where they obtain an apartment in a very old house.
Coraline finds the damp landscape gloomy -- it is, I lived there -- and is feeling a bit neglected because her parents are putting in overtime trying to meet a deadline on a gardening products catalogue and haven't much time for her. Coraline finds little strangenesses of things in her new surroundings that unsettle her a bit as well, including a doll with button eyes that looks like her that mysteriously shows up, odd neighbors, and a scruffy cat that lurks around the house.
Soon, one night Coraline opens a little door in her bedroom to find an eerie tunnel. She follows it through to a strange other world, where the old apartment building has been transformed into an assembly of marvels and she meets copies of her parents -- with doll-button eyes -- who fawn on her. This is all very delightful and overwhelming to her, but she again runs into the scruffy cat, which in this other world can talk (voice of Keith David). The cat informs Coraline that he's the same cat she met in the real world, that he can move back and forth between the two worlds -- and warns her that though the other world may seem like a dream come true, it's not. Coraline learns to her horror just how untrue it really is and finds herself in a life-and-death struggle, assisted only by the cat.
* Gaiman's novel CORALINE is regarded as a modern fantasy classic, and if this movie is true to the novel in style and detail -- it appears it generally is -- then it's easy to see why. CORALINE is a brilliant work of imagination with interesting and sympathetic characters, plus some definitely serious drama. It may be a story for kids, but it makes few false moves that would put off adults, and is entirely willing to hand kids a dark vision that stands far above the sugar coating of many other kids' flics.
Selick's production is first class as well, with its elaborate modeling, fine production design and implementation, as well as subdued theme music. If I hesitate to give CORALINE five stars, it's not because I can identify any real flaw with it -- I can't -- but because not everyone is going to like such a subtle, often dark movie. Otherwise I have to give CORALINE a strong recommendation, both for adults and kids, and I have to add that adults that don't have kids will still find watching it time better spent than with most Hollywood blockbusters.
