March Edition︱Movies
Overview of Coraline: Beyond the Main Storyline | By Isabella H.
The LAIKA 2009 film, Coraline, follows the story of a girl who has recently moved to a new home, where she discovers a mysterious door within the bleak comfort she’s had all her life. Her parents are writers, and repeatedly neglect her, leading her to investigate the small door in her home which mysteriously leads to another world. The director, Henry Selick, is not Tim Burton, but does fit a similar genre of which Burton is well known for.
This movies audience is towards young kids, but not quite young, as it features mild jumpscares, crude language, and certain dark themes. Initially, the original book’s author, Neil Gaiman, didn’t have the intention of making it scary. So, he used his daughter as a way to get the best view on the story, but its alleged that she lied and told him the book wasn’t scary, even though she thought it was. The artstyle is time consuming, taking the efforts of many to execute well. Hundreds of frames need to be taken for a few seconds of film time, with delicate models for each character.
For further context, Coraline is lured into another version of her life through a small door which is only accessible to her at night, where a creature disguised as her mother plots to likely eat her. But knowing its a stranger, she fell to the bait. In a way, her parents actions spoke much louder to her than their words did. They didn’t pay attention to her, and gave the impression they didn’t care. Although by the end of the movie, they are more accepting for prior mistakes, her neglect by them had an impact on why she seriously considered staying in another world, where her parents sang to her, made delicious food, and let her get all her material desires.
To the audience, many young girls can resonate with this movie, especially teenagers, who have complicated feelings and relationships with others, especially parents.. Many themes can be interpreted from the film, the Other Father is imprisoned, a puppet meant to be used by another, and the vulnerability of a person when ignored, the risks one goes for another. Something which also saddens Coraline is how after risking her life to save her parents, she realizes that they’ll never know. To better understand the beauty of this world, you can stream it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Redbox, and Google Movies, along with Blu-Ray and DVD. Many film collectors do recommend purchasing a physical copy of the movie, since you can always play it even when companies may possibly lose streaming rights to Coraline.