Coraline

What happens when a writer suffers migraines and uses opium to cope? Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. What happens if you read a lot of lewis carol books - and possibly also take opium (to cope?)? Coraline. The latter (movie) is based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name which i'm just going to go ahead and assume no one read. Go on: prove me wrong! I DARE you!

Now, since the movie's a few weeks old now, i'm probably not the first person to draw parallels between Coraline and Lewis Carol's books. However, i feel it bears repeating since it's more than just the surreal world of Coraline that invoke the images of Lewis Carol's work (Coraline even has her own cheshire cat!).

The first thing i want to note about this movie is actually something non-artistic or plot related. Coraline, though it uses claymation (a breath of fresh air given the overuse of CGI in the last decade) and was marketed as a tim burton film is, in fact, NOT a tim burton film. I mention this because this is something that came as a surprise to me when the opening credits began to role. Tim burton was involved with the film, but his name only appears as the producer credit... and we all know about movies that advertise based off of the producer! Personally, i rank the "from the producer of" credit as highly as "from the set designer of" or "from the guy who brought the danishes for the director of". It just doesn't matter.

Anyway, let's move on from tim burton and talk about the film and plot.

The movie starts with our young heroine (addict?) using a dowsing stick to find an old well. The whole sequence seems to have little other purpose than to set up last minute plot elements and introduce a nosy neighbour boy with an unfortunate name (that Coraline makes fun of a LOT). The neighbour boy tries to befriend Coraline, but she seems to find him more annoying than anything else.

Wait wait wait! Boy + girl + awkward and mixed feelings? I wonder where this will go... Ah, to hell with it, i'll spoil the surprise: it's a romantic subplot! (C'mon, you were surprised just a little, right?)

To be fair, the romantic subplot isn't a major subplot (but still clearly a present one) and takes a little longer than other romantic subplots to play out. Also, because the protagonists ARE clearly prepubescent, it ends more in a "close friendship" than anything else.

Anyway, as it turns out, our young heroine addict and her family have only recently moved into an eerie house that for some reason reminds me of the house from Betelgeuse (NB: the author of Coraline has stated he grew up in an "addam's family house"). While Coraline's parents are more preoccupied with their upcoming book they're publishing, they give their restless daughter some busy work to keep her out of their hair, setting her about to explore their new home (mom and dad of the year: "count the windows, honey"). During her search, she turns up a strange crawl space door that's been mysteriously bricked up and wall-papered over. While the door initially holds a lot of intrigue for Coraline, she promptly forgets about it due to its largely unassuming nature.

Meanwhile, our would-be romeo has found a mysterious doll that looks EXACTLY LIKE Coraline but with button eyes and decides to give it to his new neighbour as a present ('cause girls don't find guys they just met who give them dolls that are facsimiles of themselves creepy or anything).

So, where'd this doll come from? Well, apparently it just appeared mysteriously shortly after Coraline and her family moved into the house. Needless to say, this eeriness is lost on EVERYONE, except, miraculously, our young heroine (addict?). But even she just writes it off as "the neighbour boy's a creep" and leaves it at that. Though, to be fair, a doll that looks exactly like her IS a lot less out of the ordinary than, say, a mouse circus, a talking cat and a piano that "plays you": all of which she encounters later on in her story and reacts to as if they're only mildly spectacular.

Well, i don't want to give away too much of the plot here, but as it turns out, that mysterious door is a gateway (like a looking glass) to an alternative world (like a wonderland) where everything is "too good to be true" - her parents are attentive, the nosy neighbour boy is a mute and the fields are sown with poppies. In short, it's everything our heroine (addict?) always wanted! Of course she falls for the ruse hook line and sinker... right up until the twist that she has to sacrifice her eyes for buttons; then that life "she's always wanted" doesn't seem all that great anymore. Coraline gives her "other mother" the proverbial middle finger and after a slow set up, the plot finally finds its stride. Coraline spends the remainder of the movie figuring out what's really important to her and fighting (at times, literally for her life) to get it all back.

It's worthwhile to note that while Coraline is in her drug-induced dreams, the claymation that's employed to make the world marvelous and creepy all at once is nothing short of awe-inspiring. I have to say, seeing animation other than CGI being used to create such an elaborate world is, at the very least, a treat for the eyes. The work and effort that went into crafting the world certainly shows in everything from the dynamic facial expressions of the characters to the tiniest poppy seed in the garden (ed, whiny reader: ENOUGH WITH THE "HEROINE JOKES"!).

While it's not REALLY a tim burton movie, there are quite a few nods to his work and i'm sure even a non-fan can pick up on some of the homages, particularly in background and set design. Ultimately, though, i just felt like the movie wasn't anything special and was at times simply trying to be "alice in wonderland" for the sake of being "alice in wonderland". The coherence of the plot definitely suffers from the rushed pacing at the end, and i just never felt the urgency that's supposed to be associated with the more urgent scenes.

All in all, there's not much i can say bad about this movie, just like there's not much i can say that's good. Is Coraline the greatest movie ever? No. Is it the worst? No. Coraline is one of the most average movies i've ever seen. It doesn't try to over step its boundaries, but nor does it fall short of those expected of it. There's nothing explicitly wrong with it, but you'll still walk out of the theatre feeling like something was missing.

I give Coraline a painfully painfully average grade: C+.