Coraline

This week I watched the movie Coraline by Henry Selick. I had never even remotely heard of the story before, only that it was highly recommended to go and watch the movie from my little sister, so I did. What I was really surprised by was that the whole movie really had a Tim Burton feel to it, which I really connected to because I love his other films such as The Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I wasn't surprised in a bad way though, going into see the movie I had little to no expectations of what it would be like. Besides the stunning visuals when watching the movie the whole way through, the story line that unraveled felt really advanced to me. Advanced in the term that though I should this would be a cute animated movie the horror of realizing that this movie was actually kind of scary, and how the younger audience whom I thought this movie was geared towards would be frightened senseless, or at least I know I would have been at a young age.

The other mother and other father world world was a genius idea to play towards, especially for children. Everyone dreams of another, better, word that they could explore and "rule" over, which was clearly shown how Coraline's other parents catered to her and actually paid attention to her. I really connected with the beginning of the film with how Coraline was feeling in that sense that she wanted to explore and find something better than this new, yet old and broken down house because I had found myself in a very similar situation when I was about her age. The part where, after Coraline's first introduction to her 'other' parents, after they put her to bed, Coraline talks to her friends in the photograph. At that scene I almost wanted to cry, because that is exactly what I dreamed of when I was in her position, in a new home and far away from her best friends.

I stopped questioning all of the 'other' characters and why they had button eyes at all after their first introduction. But when the creepyness started happening in the ‘other’ world and Colraline was trapped, I couldn’t help but question the directors choise only because it WAS really scary, or I imagin it would be for children.

The movie overall held a lot of personal parallels for me so I really connected to it. I LOVED the visuals and development of the plot, and of course I loved how Coraline out smarted the ‘other mother’.

Overall movie wise 8/10 for really nice visuals and story.