Making my way out of the theater after seeing Coraline, I kept hearing the same four words repeated by several people.
“Too scary for kids.”
Is it? Obviously, at the ripe age of my mid-twenties, following an adolescent period spent wisely on the devouring of the best horror films from half a dozen countries, my scare-o-meter is slightly removed from that of a child’s; but I think back on a childhood favorite also directed by Coraline director Henry Selick (not, as often mistaken, by Tim Burton). The Nightmare Before Christmas, for a kid, was spooky, but not in the “don’t turn off the lights!” kind of way. Like Coraline, it’s the kind of spooky that’s cool to embrace.
Let’s face it, all those magical Disney-approved fairy tales we’re used to telling children generations after generations? They’re often sanitized versions whittled from scary folklores. You can’t get any more gruesome than the Brothers Grimm’s bedtime stories. There’s a reason for the horror—they serve a cautionary purpose for children, spooking them into learning a valuable moral. Coraline is simply following the footsteps of its predecessors. It even works in halves like a fairy tale—first a setup then a moral—rather than the familiar 3-act film structure.
Coraline deals with the turning point between a dream and a nightmare. Young Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) moves into a new home with her writer parents, dreading her dreary new surroundings, especially since the landlady’s weird grandson Wyborn (Robert Bailey Jr.) is stalking her. Coraline stages a fit because her mom (Teri Hatcher) and dad (John Hodgman) are too busy working on their book to cater to her needs. That is, until she finds a secret tunnel that leads to an other world very much like her own, except her “other” parents there spoil her with their magical world. Oh, and they have buttons for eyes. While it is at first a dream come true for Coraline, things turn nasty when her Other Mother finally shows her sinister intentions. Rather than kidnapping her, Other Mother simply bribes Coraline with her heart’s desire, playing with the classic tactic of temptations. It poses an interesting challenge: is a child’s love for his or her parents simply based on what the parents are willing to say “yes” to?
It’s here that Coraline proves itself a fairy tale for today’s world. Sure, we all want to be coddled by our parents, but sometimes we have to understand that to afford us the luxury of that love, our parents have to work for a living. The moral here isn’t the old-fashioned family epiphany of putting love above obligations; it’s actually the other way around, a lesson of self-sacrifice. It’s the modern-thinking family dynamic of compromise between parent and child. The film is a direct way of showing kids the ugliness that’s waiting to replace you if you expect to live in a world where you always get what you want.
It comes as no surprise that Coraline’s animation is stellar. The character designs, to begin with, are bold and distinct, something we’ve come to expect from Selick. The set is magnificently put together, full of extremely lush colors (the Other World's garden scene is simply gorgeous). The charm, though, is in the rudimentary art of its stop-motion animation, countering the flood of computer animated films all striving to be flawless in their fluidity. Rather than smoothing the movements with computers the way Tim Burton did for The Corpse Bride, Coraline leaves in the kinks. Even the use of 3D is very subtle, never once distracting from the story. It’s mainly used to give depth to the amazing craftsmanship of the sets and puppets.
Is the film too scary? I don’t think so. After all, what good is a fable when there’s no monster to learn lessons from? What it is is a much better spiritual follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas than The Corpse Bride. Much, much better. Coraline keeps it simple but precise, and it’s all the more dazzling for it.
"Coraline" opens February 6, 2009 and is rated PG. Animation, Children & Family, Fantasy. Directed by Henry Selick. Written by Neil Gaiman (novel), Henry Selick (screenplay). Starring Dakota Fanning, Ian McShane, John Hodgman, Keith David, Robert Bailey Jr, Teri Hatcher.
