Coraline

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
7/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
8.5/10

Year made: 2009
Runtime: 100 minutes
IMDB page: here

Rich, dark, delicious. It's a twisted fairy tale. It's a full-length stop motion animation film. These are the essentials before you go into the film.

I liked the film very much. It's a fantasy turned into a nightmare. You know, I had my doubts before watching this. I don't want to waste my hour and a half with some kiddie stuff that has no rewatch value. Or first-time watch value, period. But this is definitely a very enjoyable film with its creepy edge.

Plot: Coraline just moved into an apartment with her workaholic parents who have no time for her. She's an adventurous but lonely little girl. When exploring the ancient apartment, she finds a little door in the wall that's bricked off. But in her dreams, the door leads to a fantasy land where her parents go to a great length to please her. Her mom cooks her favourite meals, her dad arranges the whole garden to look like her face, and even the neighbours are quirky and fun. One tiny weird detail: everyone's eyes are buttons sewed on.

Things sour when her Other Mother wants to sew buttons over her eyes as well. She finds that not everything in fantasy is what it seems to be, and she's having quite some trouble returning to the "boring" reality she used to hate...

Acting: the voice acting by Dakota Fanning as Coraline and Teri Hatcher as Mother and the Other Mother is ... adequate. Expressive, ... not a whole lot to say about them. But they do make you forget that it's their voice, and you stop associating their face with the character, and I highly respect that.

Script: Based Neil Gaiman's novella, which I haven't read, but I have read Good Omens (coauthored by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett). It's a dark but light kind of humour, quite creepy at times but very enjoyably so. The story teaches you a lesson not-so-subtly, but it's one you are quite willing to swallow. And your heart really goes out for the little girl. It's a bit like Pan's Labyrinth, where the lonely little girl creates a fantasy that she might not be able to handle in the end.

Production: Adapted and directed by Henry Selick, who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas. The main characters in this one are smoother than Nightmare. Some of the fantasyland scenes are just wondrous (like in the Other Father's garden, or the Opera House, or the Circus, or even the Other Mother's kitchen where the chandelier also serves as a multi-flavored milkshake dispenser). I personally wouldn't be able to stay away from such a fantasy land, which makes the nightmare hit home more vividly. And some of the creepy imageries really stick with you, like the sewn-on button eyes, or the stuffed old dead dogs dressed as angels, or the old abandoned lifeless dolls bleeding sand, or the Other Father hunting down Coraline on a mechanic praying mantis...

Soundtrack: dreamy in a slightly sinister way. Lilting vocals like wind chimes. Properly dark.

All in all, a very pleasant surprise.