Coraline (PG)
- Starring: Dakota Fanning, Ian McShane, Teri Hatcher, Keith David, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French
- Director: Henry Selick
- Duration: 100 mins
- Year: 2009
Coraline Jones moves into the Pink Palace Apartments with her writer mother Mel and father Charlie. The girl explores her creaky, new home and meets the neighbours: downstairs, she is enthralled by fading British musical hall divas Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, while upstairs, eight- feet tall Russian giant Mr Bobinsky cracks a whip over his circus of jumping mice. One night, Coraline uncovers a secret door leading from the living room to a parallel reality called Other World where her Other Mother and Other Father provide her with all of the love, support and attention she craves. The plucky heroine feels like she has stumbled into a living dream but all is not what it seems.
Reviews
Alison Rowat's Review
In common with classic animated tales of the past, Henry Selick’s fantasy drama, from the novel by Neil Gaiman, is as dark as a witch’s hat. At once beautiful and disturbing, comforting yet terrifying, it’s one of the most original children’s pictures in years.
Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) is a little city girl with blue hair who goes to live in the country. With her grumpy parents always working, she longs for a mum and dad who have time for her. When she finds a secret door to another world, complete with a devoted “Other Mother” and “Other Father”, all her dreams have come true – or have they?
Selick, who helmed Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, plays a clever game with his heroine and the viewer, luring us in before slowly revealing the truth.
Genuinely creepy in parts, Selick’s picture is also fantastically inventive, from Coraline’s wacky neighbours (voiced by French and Saunders, plus Ian McShane as a Russian strongman), to a talking cat, a theatre full of Scottie dogs, and jumping mice.
There’s nothing here to leap out at you; Coraline, shot in 3D, is not scary in that sense, but it does scurry its way into the mind to play on childhood fears.
One thing is for sure, you’ll certainly never look at buttons in quite the same way again.