I am an admitted fanatic of Neil Gaiman; I have not call myself a real aficionado of Henry Selick only because I haven't gone beyond the pedestrian level of familiarity with his work. However, having seen this, I think I have to start wearing that title and digging through IMDB for further evidence of his greatness.
For those unfamiliar, I present
Coraline in lightly spoiled synopsis format: The titular young girl encounters a chilling otherworld version of her home and her family, and uncovers the mystery of a rickety pink boarding house planted in the middle of some rocks, hills, and mud. Special Guests: A dig at writers and the world's most adorable rodents.
Now, let me answer the two questions I know we're all asking. For those who work for the Chicago Tribune or who somehow got here from Yahoo Answers: Tim Burton has nothing to do with this movie. Henry Selick adapted Tim Burton's idea to the big screen to bring us
The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is not a Tim Burton movie, or a Tim Burton idea; indeed, as far as I can tell, Tim Burton's only connection to this film is via one of the previews.
To the rest of the populous, the other, bigger question: Yes. Henry Selick did a marvelous job of adapting the book. He captured the rainy-day-crawlspace beauty of Gaiman's original piece, and added his own, almost antique level of wonder to the experience. Things changed, but none of it spoils the experience.
Now then, to draw back the CURTAIN OF SPOILERS OH MY GOD IF YOU READ THIS YOU WITHDRAW ALL RIGHT TO HATE ME
Still with me? Good.
I will not waste your time with dissection of the story as a whole. For one thing, that would by and large be a book review, and a book review of a novel which has been on the market for some time. For another, overviews of Gaiman's stories rarely have much new to be said about them. Gaiman is a master of sculpting new flesh and muscle onto very old bones, and
Coraline is no exception. When laid out on the table the story is quite unsurprising—a sort of coming-of-age through acceptance of one's parents as three-dimensional creatures with their ups and their downs, a moving away from (but not entirely out of) the shadow world of the strange and the unknowable. Instead, I would like to focus on what sets
Coraline apart from its sister narratives; and on those story elements Mr. Selick chose to alter, some of which I do not entirely agree with.
Let me start with some of the good things, and among those, let me start with the voice-acting. Oh my sweet candy-flipping God, the voice-acting. The film is a cavalcade of voices who tap-dance here and there through the limelight without ever staying for long. Ian McShane's voice disappears into the Eastern European accent of Mr. Bobinsky, and manages to tickle the funny bone without ever punching it desperately the way some actors might have; Robert Bailey Jr. gives off just the right prepubescent creepiness as Wybie; Keith "the Baritone" David lends sly not-quite-heroics to the part of the cat; and John Hodgman does a spectacular turn as both versions of Coraline's father. But the real kudos here have to go to Teri Hatcher, who gives a weary, worried, desperately sarcastic life to Coraline's mother, and a cold, artificial, horrifying bipolarity to the beldam.
And the visuals! I do not have enough positive adjectives for the visuals. "Phantasmagoric" comes to mind, as do "hypnotic", "transcendent", and the truest permutation of "awesome". His interpretation of Coraline's world is beautiful in a way that differed sharply from my own, but which I found nonetheless beautiful and acceptable; it is a world where the people are weird and the supernatural is weirder. Selick manages to make the Other World look staged and fabricated without directly calling attention to the fact that it, quite literally, is, and his use of the button motif for the beldam's powers manages to be cute without succumbing to the role of narrative hammer. The animation team's love for the art form is evident in every one of the shots, their little details and their inspired gloom. I could list off every little touch I loved most, from the care with which he echoed and warped every detail of both houses to the component parts of the beldam's true form, but I'd go on for pages. I will say, though, that the sequences in the Other Garden and the jumping mouse circus are must-sees for anyone who wants to call themselves puppeteer or animator.
Now, let me take a moment to detract. Perhaps this is memory giving the book a generous patina, but I am not sure I like some of the spark Selick took from the character of Coraline. Gaiman's Coraline was a hero of great brain and great heart; she resisted the beldam's efforts to enslave her without showing fear, and lured the beldam's hand quite deliberately to the old well. This aspect of her is seen in the way in which she rescues her parents, but overall the cinematic Coraline seems much more selfish and lost than she did in the novel, and I feel this dulls the message somewhat.
Then again, giving Coraline obvious good and bad sides puts her in the same field with her parents, who both clearly display negative and positive traits (though her father's good side doesn't wholly shine through until the end of the film; her mother gets her moment before the climax even starts). The film's message is much more about accepting people wholecloth, rather than trying to pick and choose personality traits, where the book was largely about growing up and establishing independence without needing to reject those who take care of you. The book, in other words, is about people a bit younger than those in the film; and I do not think it suffers for that.
**THE SPOILER CURTAIN HAS FALLEN**
But these thoughts all come to me long after the fact. The truth is,
Coraline is not a movie to be watched with an eye toward meaning, and I say that not to defend vapidity but to encourage you to let it sink in. The watcher should go in with their mind open and emptied, and just let Selick and Gaiman fill it for two or so hours. It is a movie with consistent tastes and looks and feels, a movie that evokes moods perfectly. It is a movie that captures the weird way a child views a small town, the strange behaviors of little girls and little boys, and the double-edged truths about the people we know and love. It is a movie that begs to be experienced, and that does nothing but reward those who do so. Selick has done a marvelous job bringing Gaiman's book to the big screen, and even the parts I disagree with I can appreciate and understand.
Short version: see
Coraline. You will not be disappointed.
Labels: reviews
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