Coraline (2009)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Henry Selick

Writers (WGA):

Henry Selick (screenplay)
Neil Gaiman (book)

Release Date:

6 February 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Family | Fantasy

Tagline:

Be careful what you wish for.

Plot:

An adventurous girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

Plot Keywords:

Secret Door | Parent | Young Girl | High Dive | Bicycle

Cast

Dakota Fanning	...	Coraline Jones (voice)
Teri Hatcher	...	Mel Jones / Other Mother / Beldam (voice)
Jennifer Saunders	...	Miss April Spink / Other Spink (voice)
Dawn French	...	Miss Miriam Forcible / Other Forcible (voice)
Keith David	...	The Cat (voice)
John Hodgman	...	Charlie Jones / Other Father (voice)
Robert Bailey Jr.	...	Wybie Lovat (voice)
Ian McShane	...	Mr. Sergei Alexander Bobinsky / Other Bobinsky (voice)
Aankha Neal	...	Sweet Ghost Girl (voice)
George Selick	...	Ghost Boy (voice)
Hannah Kaiser	...	Tall Ghost Girl (voice)
Harry Selick	...	Photo Friend #1 (voice)
Marina Budovsky	...	Photo Friend #2 (voice)
Emerson Hatcher	...	Magic Dragonfly (voice)
Jerome Ranft	...	Mover (voice)

Also Known As:

Coraline & the Secret Door (Australia) (promotional title)

MPAA:

Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor.

Runtime:

UK:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG (certificate #45001) | UK:PG | Finland:K-7 | Ireland:PG | Brazil:Livre | Portugal:M/6 (Qualidade) | Argentina:13 | Peru:PT | South Korea:All | Hong Kong:IIA | Mexico:A | Netherlands:6 | Sweden:11 | Iceland:L | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | New Zealand:PG | Singapore:PG | France:U | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Portland, Oregon, USA

Company:

Focus Features

Trivia:

In Quebec, the French version features the voices of Catherine Brunet, 'Genevieve Brouillette' and Jean-Michel Anctil.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene where Coraline falls asleep on the picture frame, at first it is facing down, but when the shot changes it has flipped to facing up.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Coraline Jones: [after hearing a creature while exploring the hills] Hello? Who's there?

Movie Connections:

References The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Soundtrack:

Other Father Song

An Instant Classic

Feisty eleven-year-old Coraline walks through a secret door and discovers a parallel reality. That reality is sort of similar to the life she already knows yet deeply unsettling in a number of ways. Coraline (voice of Dakota Fanning) begins a journey of adventure and self discovery when her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) relocate the family to Oregon from Michigan. No one in this new space has time for her so she spends her time exploring her new neighborhood with an talkative local boy named Wybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.). After discovering the odd neighbors all of whom are true characters, she is still bored somehow.

All of this immense undertaking is courtesy writer and director Henry Selick, director of Nightmare Before Christmas, and the well crafted adaptation of Neil Gaiman's international best-selling children's novel. To Selick's credit this is the first 3D stop motion ever made; stereoscopic 3D. Selick himself worked on the film for three years. The style is stunning and the story is an unwavering fairy-tale nightmare that has some genuinely scary moments. is a masterful movie and an exciting tale of mystery and imagination.

In the rotting nooks and crannies of Coraline's new home the real story begins and where she discovers a hidden doorway behind the wallpaper. Inside is her alternate space where there are doubles of her distracted parents now lavish loving attention on Coraline, the oddball neighbors are friendlier, and her pesky friend long longer speaks. Only her parents' eyes now black buttons give a clue that something isn't quite right.

Selick has created a world as much for adults as children as there are references dotted throughout that the young won't understand. The imagery, however, is very child like. Both talents live side by side and bodes well for Selick's previous work in Nightmare before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and even Monkeybone. His work has always been fascinating. Gaiman is to be credited with the story for sure, but this is Selick through and through. This film is sure to become an instant classic and as well executed as this movie is it should be.