CORALINE (2009) DIR. HENRY SELICK, A FILM REVIEW BY OVIYA THIRUMALAI

17/5/2021

Welcome to the third year of our annual cooperation with the University of Derby These reviews were written by second-year students on the Creative and Professional Writing Programme at the University of Derby as part of their ongoing non-fiction work. Today we welcome Oviya Thirumalai to the site with her review of Coraline directed by Henry Selick, and based on Neil Gaiman novella of the same name.

Coraline (2009)
Dir. Henry Selick,
USA,
1h 40m

Coraline, a spunky 11-year-old, is rather disappointed in her plain new home, startingly eccentric neighbours and the usual lack of attention from her parents. However, when she is given a doll that closely resembles her by Wyborne (yes, that’s his real name), another adventurous child, who lives nearby, the plot is set into motion. She is guided into a whole other world, via a passageway in her new home, bursting with colour, loving parents, and most importantly, roast chicken and a gravy train. The only catch? She has to sew buttons into her eyes if she wants to remain there. The movie then follows a high-risk game wherein Coraline must not only escape the clutches of her ‘other’ mother, but must also free the souls of other children and rescue her lost parents.

The movie, surprisingly, is an adaptation of the dark fantasy children’s novella ‘Coraline’, penned by British author Neil Gaiman. Initially written for his daughters, the book was developed over a ten-year period. Amusingly, the total production period for the film was close to five years. Both the movie and the novella have enjoyed immense success and critical appreciation. As one of the people who have enjoyed both of then, I can confidently state that this is a movie adaptation that really brings the story to screen in the best possible way.

Coraline, despite being primarily aimed at children, manages to please adults too, and not just with the horror elements, but with the intelligence of the script and the visuals. One of my favourite moments feature a beautiful blue and gold sky, a nod to Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’. That particular scene is quite genius, initially lulling watchers into a sense of false security, with the free souls of the trapped children, before delivering another round of bad news, that she’s still in danger. That there’s a super creepy metallic hand out to steal the key, and drag Coraline back to the other world. Much like the actual plot, I was drawn in by it’s stunning visuals, that I barely remembered that it was in fact, a horror movie. This shot is immediately followed by an even creepier one. Coraline, who I must remind you is a 11-year-old girl, decides to throw away the key in an abandoned well that is located in the large woods, in the middle of the night, in a horror movie.

This scene had me metaphorically slamming my head into the wall, for three reasons. The first being, the lack of common sense that we normally experience with the protagonist in Horror movies. The second being her fearlessness, that one could consider reckless. The third being the absolute irresponsibility of her parents. Whilst sneaking out of the house at midnight for a secret rendezvous is a rite of passage, a tween definitely shouldn’t be able to pull it off. That being said, Coraline makes the right decision, as proved by the rather intense fight scene seconds later. She and Wyborne, yet another tween who happens to enjoy taking moonlit strolls in the woods at midnight, manage to drop both key and hand into the well, and end the reign of terror.

The movie also features a rather philosophical excerpt, “what a piece of work is man,” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603), a soliloquy that I unfortunately immediately recognised from my days of attempting to master Hamlet. However, to my delight, it is now performed in the movies most cringey scene. Supposedly a parent approved source of entertainment, Coraline is ‘treated’ to a stage turned acrobatic performance by two elderly actresses, as they attempt to recreate both Greek goddess Aphrodite’s birth, and The Odyssey’s (1614) singing siren. Whilst it does end up becoming a rather endearing scene, especially the acrobatic portion, the initial shock of the nearly naked women, does make me cringe each time.

When analysing what really makes Coraline the exception to my no-horror rule, (I’m a scaredy cat and I’m not afraid to admit it,) the visuals is the first thing that comes to mind. Originally planned to be a live-adaptation, director Henry Selick makes the decision to use stop-motion to animate Coraline and her world. Selick, best known for his directorial work in ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ (1993), another children’s dark-fantasy stop motion film, handles Coraline with a veteran hand. Despite being a risky gamble, Coraline paved the way for the increased use of stop-motion animation with the production studio Laika, who later produced the critically acclaimed ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ (2016).

An example of the breath-taking visuals, and my favourite scene in the movie, is the opening sequence. It really sets the tone for the movie as a whole by featuring a doll being remodelled to resemble Coraline, which is complimented well with the music, that initially appears to be light-hearted, yet holds an underlying tension beneath. The scene both intrigues and excites the audience and I commend the designers for creating the fantasy element of the open window, as the doll slowly ascends into the sky.

Selick maintains the power of the visuals throughout the movie. Whilst the jumping mice sequence routine never fails to leave me impressed, it’s the slow shots that really creep up on me. The first shot of the ‘other’ mother leaves me reeling each time, as does her transformation into the shattered monster that she becomes. Whilst the latter plays on the horror movie genre, by fixating on scarier elements and a screechy voice (hats off to debut actress Teri Hatcher), it is the unsettling button eyes of the first that scares me more.

Despite the movie being rated PG, I would personally advise against showing your younger children this movie. Personally, having been shown the movie at age 9 in school, I along with several other of my classmates, were left traumatised by the movie. That being said, this movie has become a favourite movie of mine, and I have consistently watched it multiple times a year ever since.

I would rate Coraline a 9/10 because whilst it’s a masterpiece of a children’s horror movie, it is quite predictable at times, and thus eliminating the real fear that she might not survive. The movie blends comedic moments, a few short musical numbers, artistic visuals and horror extremely well and it’s a movie that definitely needs to be watched!

Oviya Thirumalai

Oviya Thirumalai is a student in her second year of creative writing and photography at the University of Derby. She attempts to both do her coursework on time, and be a freelance writer on the side. She calls herself a poet, a scriptwriter, and an author.

She spends a lot of her time re-watching movies that she’s already seen, sitting with a blank page trying to write, obsessing over her favourite fictional characters, and sleeping.

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