Coraline (**½)

Directed by: Henry Selick
Starring (voices): Dakota Fanning, Tari Hatcher
Seen: May 25th 2009

**½ Out of ****

Coraline takes stop-motion 3D animation to new levels, it truly is fantastic to behold, but the film is also a bit of a misdirected one. Neil Gaiman is famous for oddly inspiring stories, both novels and short, of which I’ve read and enjoyed many. I’ve no doubt I would enjoy Coraline too, even though it is aimed at a younger market – you see, this story has a moral: Be careful what you wish for. The thing is, while the story is aimed at a younger market, I don’t believe presentation of it is.

Now kids are getting used to more and more these days, but the film left me unsettled in a way I’ve rarely felt over the years. It’s creepy in an extremely creative way, but still extremely creepy. The imagery is strange and wonderful and above all utterly imaginative. You get to see a man riding a vehicle shaped like a praying mantis. There are two fat (and nearly naked) women doing a stage show, and as they unzip themselves two thin women jump out of them. Scottish terriers, normal (in the film’s way), dead and stuffed (racked up on a shelf), and winged (in the form of bats and angels) amuse and terrify in equal measure.

Getting back to the story, Coraline (Fanning) is a young girl who moves to the Pink Palace with her parents, her father a writer, and her mother (Hatcher) his editor. They are both extremely entrenched in what they do and gives no time of day for Coraline. While exploring their new house she finds a small door behind a sofa covered over with wallpaper and she bugs her mother to find the key and help her open it. But there is nothing but a brick wall behind it (when her mother is present). Later that night Coraline is awoken by a mouse in her room, and she follows it to where it runs through this small door behind the sofa. Opening the door all the way, the brick wall is gone, and in its place a wormhole of sorts opens, and she crawls right on through to discover, her house again. But there are differences: her mother is making food that smells good, and as she turns around from in front of the oven, her eyes are buttons. This sets Coraline off for only a few moments, as everything in this world is what she wanted, exciting parents, colourful surrounds and good food.

But as they say about things being too good to be true, Coraline is soon enough given a choice to stay in this wonderful (and slightly off-centre) world forever at the cost of replacing her eyes with buttons. This is one step too far, and as she tries to get back, the true nature of this fantasy world comes to the light, which I have to say is rather dark. To set things right she is also set with the task of retrieving the eyes of all those who’ve fallen before, to save them, and the adventure takes off from here while the creepy factor keeps increasing.

This is a visually impressive, strangely entertaining, yet oddly unsettling film, as I have said. And in wanting to see this I can only give the tagline as warning, Be careful what you wish for.