Coraline
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on February 8, 2010 – 10:47 AM49 Comments
Sweet movie, but with both its feet planted on the correct side of the cutesy line. The expected over-explanation of and/or moralizing about why Coraline wants out of the Other world never materialized; she just got a wiggins and proceeded from there. That businesslike approach (as well as a few understatedly creepy bits, like the walk through the empty parts of the Beldam’s world) paired just right with elements like the talking cat and the glorious garden.
Points also for judicious use of chickens. Loved the Tex Averyesque popcorn machine at the mouse circus.
Death Race 49, Sarah 9
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Tags: movies Neil Gaiman Oscars 2010 Death Race Tex Avery
I saw this movie a few days after reading the book and I must say both gave me the wiggins at the ripe old age of 33 and I would have found it way too scary as a youngster. It was the button eyes I think. Random side note: I “get” why the movie changed the setting from the UK to the US, but that doesn’t actually make it a “good” reason.
I watched this yesterday twice – one with my 8yo and again with him and my 11 yo. At some point the 2nd time around it really dawned on me that this is not a childrens’ movie. I think I realized it about the time the Other Mother started to reveal her true self and the ghost children were introduced. Scared the bejesus out of me!
I meant to make note of that — the opening sequence alone, with the doll being basically gutted, would have freaked me right out when I was a kid. By which I mean that it freaked me right out at age 36. Evocative animation, but maybe too much so for a youngun.
I’ve talked with a lot of kids about this movie (I’m a children’s librarian, so they pay me to do that. Awesome.), and I’ve found that they’re mostly not as bothered by it as adults. They found it scary, but thrilling-scary, not screaming-nightmares-after scary. Me, I fully expected nightmares. My conclusion is that kids are tough and gruesome little creatures, but I’ve suspected that for a while.
The first time I saw the opening animation it seemed more sweet, the way the old doll was being rejuvenated and sent back out into the world (obviously, I knew almost nothing about the story).
The second time through, the full creepiness of the sequence registered. I’m not sure why the hands didn’t seem creepy the first time around, though.
I’m with @Liz. I actually showed this to my 5 year old and she loved it and acted it out for days afterward. I think sometimes kids have more resilience than we give them credit for. Obviously YMMV with YOUR kid but I think with mine the scary stuff that comes to a good resolution (monster banished) makes her feel like she can conquer bad stuff or at least that bad stuff can be conquered. So it’s empowering for her to know that.
And yes the button eyes scared the CRAP out of me in the book and the movie. ew!! And what was the reason for changing the country? I see no reason why they couldn’t be in the UK.
Tulip: As I understand it, the answer is marketing. British children are used to watching American movies. American children are not used to watching British movies.
What I don’t understand is why they had to take away from the title character and have the boy save the day. Again. As usual. It soured the whole movie for me.
I actually think the film/book is scarier for adults than for children. The movie does have some creepy visuals that could frighten the really young ones, but the story itself (at least on the surface) isn’t all that frightening. It’s when you start to think about the themes of identity and the loss of self that it gets really creepy. But having read this myself and to a class of 4th graders, I can tell you that they weren’t going that deep into the story. Developmentally kids just don’t processes stories the same way adults do and so, generally, the psychologically scary things just don’t register with them.
Neil Gaiman has noted (I have almost all of his books, but can’t find the quote now) that kids find “Coraline” to be thrilling, while adults find it terrifying. I have to agree. I read the book shortly before learning the movie was due to come out, and both the book and the film were quite frightening to this 32-year-old (though I adored it). My father (with whom I saw the movie) bought me the 3D DVD, but my husband and I are waiting until our toddler is well asleep until we crack it out.
Here it is, on his Website:
“As a general sort of rule, kids seem to read it as an adventure. Adults get nightmares.”
Hey, I’m a children’s librarian too! (Well, teen, but, close enough)
Gaiman has said a couple times that Coraline is a book that is too scary for adults but just right for children. Adults tend to bring a lot of baggage to things with them, whereas kids are like “Cool! An adventure! With monsters!” I think that holds true for the movie too.
That being said, my daughter and I read this book when she was 6, and she loved it. We went to see the movie (age eight) and it sort of freaked her out. “Mommies aren’t supposed to turn into spiders” was her reaction.
What surprised me was that I found the book much more frightening than the movie. I loved both, but am still disappointed that the film took away some of the emotional impact of some of the scenes. (Insert over used “the book is better” statement here)
I actually enjoyed the graphic novel more than the book. Liked the movie, but the changes bugged me. The visuals were amazing; the beginning, creepy as heck.
I loved the creepy old sisters reminiscing over their heyday. Hee. Also, the fact that the little boy was A)clearly biracial and B) that was not a deal at all, and in fact, never mentioned.
@SuzanneM, really? After the Harry Potter Juggernaut, we still can’t convince our kids that England is a country?
GAHHHHHHH gutted dolls, button eyes… Now I remember why I didn’t see this!!!!
I agree with the sour taste at the end of what was, up till that point, a pretty good adaptation of a great book. Wybie saving the day REALLY made me mad because that character! Isn’t! Even! In! The BOOK! Why couldn’t they just let Coraline continue to be awesome and clever and SAVE HER OWN DAMN SELF just like in the freaking book!?
Pisses me off just thinking about it. I hope Henry Selick gets lice.
Add me to the list of people who loved the book (and enjoyed the movie) but was disappointed the movie felt the need to introduce another character to do the “saving”. Coraline was pretty kick ass on her own and some of the isolation that is an integral part of the book is lost with the addition of Wybe.
That said, I *loved* the blue hair (I don’t think her hair is blue in the book?).
@Suzanne I was bugged by that too (boy saves the day) especially since Coraline was so resiliant and brave. It seemed unnecessary and dismisssive of her strength. I did like it overall though but as you say it does take away from my enjoyment.
I loved the book, but actually won’t watch the movie because I heard about the Coraline-not-saving-herself change that was made. Just hearing about that made me furious. I’m fine with adding a character so that Coraline has someone else to interact with, but why change the base plot?
And those button eyes freak me right the hell out, just thinking about them now. Brr.
“Why couldn’t they just let Coraline continue to be awesome and clever and SAVE HER OWN DAMN SELF just like in the freaking book!?”
Uh-oh! That seems like a deal-breaker of a rewrite. Aren’t Coraline’s independence, stubbornness, initiative, and self-reliance, I don’t know, rather THE POINT of the book? Nice move, Selick.
@Jen S.: Hee.
“Pisses me off just thinking about it. I hope Henry Selick gets lice.”
Best curse ever.
Loved the book, didn’t care for the changes in the movie. In any other year (without a Pixar release) this one may have been a serious contender for the Academy Award for animated film, IMO. (It’s an honor just to be nominated, etc, but I would love for something of NG’s to win an Oscar.)
Gaiman’s addressed the Wybie issue, too. IIRC, he said it was necessary to add a character for the sake of exposition and backstory, and that the addition of Wybie didn’t detract from Coraline’s overall kick-ass-ness. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, though, so I don’t remember exactly his role – I do remember reading Gaiman’s explanation/thoughts and thinking, “Yeah, I can see that.”)
And he’s mentioned the “cool for kids, horrifying for adults” thing several times also . Everyone I’ve talked to has said the same as far as the book – the movie might be a bit different because the images are provided for you, but kids seem to take the book as a romp while adults are busy hiding under the covers, hands over their eyes.
Jen S., that’s a feature of a LOT of Gaiman’s books. I’d read Neverwhere twice before I realized that the Marquis is black; in American Gods the main character is biracial but it only gets mentioned in passing a few times; almost all the main characters in Anansi Boys are black or multiracial, but race is only a part of the characters’ description, not their definition. He writes about *people*, and makes their skin color secondary.
It opened my eyes a LOT about my own (previously unrecognized) ethnocentricity, how I read most all of those characters as being white – like me – until some little detail caught my eye and I’d realize, “Oh hey!” It also helped me understand the concept of “white by default” attitude that underpins a lot of the more subtle race issues.
I was SO looking forward to having the bejeebers scared out of me by watching this (highlighted by having cats who stand on my chest to stare THISCLOSEINTOMYEYES) – and now – NO. The book is great enough to make into a movie, but we can’t have the girl save HERSELF? No. Just NO.
It’s the same thinking that nauseates me about the Harry Potter books. Rowling ostensibly wrote them for her daughter. But her hero is A BOY. Yeah, yeah, Hermione is in the books, too. But they aren’t the Hermione Granger books about Hermione and her buddies. Apparently Rowling wanted to make sure her daughter got the message that girls will read books about boys, but boys won’t read books about girls.
I was speaking with two of my friends’ sons last week (ages 7 and 5), and they were scared senseless by the movie. I couldn’t get them to articulate exactly why; the five-year-old just kept saying “no more Coraline in this house…no more Coraline in this house”. These are boys who’ve watched everything from Indiana Jones to Alien and back, and Coraline is the only movie they don’t want in the house. Strange. I finally got around to watching it yesterday (twice, on HBO), and enjoyed it a lot. Gaiman’s the man.
I also read the book back in 2002, and it freaked me directly out. Almost had to sleep with a lamp on for a few nights. :)
I never liked Neil Gaiman’s writing (despite the fact that he cowrote with my favorite author ever, Terry Pratchett) but I liked the movie Coraline. Honestly, Wybie “saving the day” in the movie didn’t even stay in my memory, so I’d say to give it a try before dismissing it.
I think the Other Mother being voiced by Teri Hatcher is very apropos: she went from a healthy looking, sleekly bobbed attractive woman to a spiky, shrill spider creature. Just like the real Teri Hatcher. Ha!
Honestly, Wybie “saving the day” in the movie didn’t even stay in my memory, so I’d say to give it a try before dismissing it.
Mine either. I’m usually among the first to notice grody gender values, but I didn’t get “the girl needs saving by a boy” from it at all. “The person who needs saving treated the other person like shit for most of the movie”? Sure. Coraline repeatedly blows Wybie off as a good-for-nothing pest, says she prefers the version that doesn’t talk, etc., so it seems like it’s another example of Coraline taking things in her actual world for granted.
But I also feel like it’s the cat who saves the day in the second place, so…maybe you might take issue with the cat being a guy, which, all righty. It doesn’t seem to me like the genders were relevant here.
Eek, I didn’t mean to start a backlash! Though I am glad to know that I wasn’t the only one frustrated by Wybie’s usurpation. It’s all well and good to add a character for exposition, but I don’t see why he had to steal her thunder, too. (Which is how it read to me. Obviously, YMMV, but I get really tired of watching girls get rescued.)
Jen S.: @SuzanneM, really? After the Harry Potter Juggernaut, we still can’t convince our kids that England is a country?
Apparently not! Maybe Hollywood people think Harry Potter’s just convinced American kids that Britain only exists in Harry Potter.
Only tangentially related, but after seeing Coraline in the theatre on Valentine’s Day last year, my cat adopted me in the parking lot. She was a skinny, noisy little tortie, and once no one claimed her, her name became Coraline. (She’s now a noisy *chubby* tortie.)
“Apparently Rowling wanted to make sure her daughter got the message that girls will read books about boys, but boys won’t read books about girls.”
And that if you are a woman, you should always make your published name gender non-specific; otherwise, boys won’t read you at all.
Speaking of Gaiman’s subtle and adept use of race in characterisation, we could also ponder Rowling’s hamfisted cultural stereotypes…GAH!
Count me among those bothered by Coraline needing to be saved by Wybie.
Because yes, Coraline was dismissive to him all movie, but is that a good enough reason to have him save her? Are we really saying girls must be nice and polite to boys they’d rather not hang out with or they deserve to end up dead?
I’m definitely not comfortable with that as a moral.
And what’s so wrong with having a protagonist who’s a little self-centered, a little introverted, and prefers to play by herself?
Yay Becca!
Now, why couldn’t they have been sensible about this movie? I wouldn’t object to someone’s being rescued by a cat, because, especially in a spookystory, that would make perfect sense. I know if I was stuck in a spookystory, I’d want the cat on my side!
Are we really saying girls must be nice and polite to boys they’d rather not hang out with or they deserve to end up dead?
“We” aren’t saying anything of the kind. The movie may be saying it’s important to realize that people you may perceive as pesty nerds could have something more to contribute.
There’s nothing wrong per se with a boy coming to the rescue; it’s when assumptions are made about that that it gets icky. In both directions.
Actually, in the end, Coraline saves herself and Whiby, and together they defeat the other mother.
Seriously, the movie is way too awesome to skip on principle.* If you’d prefer that Coraline have no help in saving herself, do what I do in gory and violent movie moments and inspect your knees for a minute at that point and do a little rewrite, a la, “And then Nite Owl and Silk Spectre walked down the alley and it was like a 1967 Batman fight with thugs getting punched – Bam! Pow! -and then lying around dazed, but not really hurt! Yay!”
I would also point out that because the very sympathetic Wybie and his Other self got such a raw deal from Coraline and the Beldam, what I registered from his swooping in at the end was not, “Drat it, she didn’t need him!” but instead “Oh, thank goodness, he’s OK!”
* There are plenty of movies that are worth skipping on principle, and I don’t say this lightly.
I haven’t yet seen the movie because I figure it can’t possibly be as good as the book. I picked up the book before bed one night, intending to read for about half an hour, and could not put it down until I had finished it. It scared the ever-living CRAP out of me, to the point where I couldn’t sleep for a couple hours after finishing it – something a scary story hasn’t accomplished since I was about 12.
My copy of “HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone” is Americanized: the kids all call their mothers “Mom” instead of “Mum”, for example. Clearly there was a thought in publishing the series here that American kids wouldn’t want to read a British book. Clearly HP proved that notion wrong, but that doesn’t mean the thinking on that will change quickly.
I don’t think that publishing under a male or gender neutral pseudonym is ever intended as anything other than the publicity advantage it is. Writers do it to appeal to the prospective audience of the book. One sees it also in pen names for romance writers; these are often women writers (and sometimes men) who use a different, Anglican, flowery name because that’s what will help sell the book. Judging writers who do this as making some kind of a cultural political statement seems, in my mind, to be projecting one’s own issues onto the actions of others.
speaking of books that terrify adults but kids see as adventures, I re-read _Peter Pan_ when I was about 25 and it gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies. I can completely see NG’s point about Coraline being the same way.
As others have pointed out, if it hadn’t been for the cat then Coraline would have been toast halfway through the story, so the “she needed to be SAVED by a BOY” ship sailed well before the movie came along.
I thought the movie was cute, but not anywhere near as good as “Stardust”.
It occurs to me that the reason adults often get more scared than kids is that adults have the same imagination, but more experience. Kids live in a world where talking bears and dudes with a skull for a head are commonplace. Adults know that jamming sewing needles into your eyeballs FREAKING HURTS A LOT.
The cat fulfills a supernatural mentor role. Not the same as a boy invented for the film.
Kids live in a world where talking bears and dudes with a skull for a head are commonplace. Adults know that jamming sewing needles into your eyeballs FREAKING HURTS A LOT.
I think you’re on to something here. The Other Mother is creepy and has sinister magical powers and is planning to, essentially, steal my soul? Whatever. The Other Mother wants to sew buttons to my eyes? NIGHTMARE FUEL.
The cat fulfills a supernatural mentor role. Not the same as a boy invented for the film.
And the boy fills a “pointing up Coraline’s occasional interpersonal myopia” role. Not the same as a sexist puer ex machina whose sole function is to rescue the frail/inept girl.
I don’t know why the filmmakers felt the need to invent Wybie, but given the other explanations available, I’m having trouble seeing it as sexist storytelling. Did someone on the development side suggest that a boy character might make the movie more attractive to boy children? Possibly. Welcome to Hollywood marketing. You could also argue that it’s sexist for Coraline to care about a dolly, but not every trope has to be subverted just for the sake of subverting tropes.
If the button eyes creep you out, avoid this link, but for anyone else who might want to make their very own set of button eyes: http://bit.ly/cFBJRe
The New Yorker profile, in case nobody had linked to it yet: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear
The explanation of “Squeeeeee!” is hilarious.
There’s nothing wrong per se with a boy coming to the rescue; it’s when assumptions are made about that that it gets icky. In both directions.
No, but there is something wrong, per se, wieth having a boy come to the rescue in a story that’s fundamentally about a girl using her own wits to save herself. Without Wybie’s intervention Coraline would have died, that simply did not happen in the text it was based on.
And there are millions of other stories available about boys saving girls, I’m not sure why this one had to be converted into that kind of story.
No, but there is something wrong, per se, wieth having a boy come to the rescue in a story that’s fundamentally about a girl using her own wits to save herself.
I think this is where we differ; I don’t see the story as being “fundamentally about” that. Perhaps the text is about that, but I can’t speak to the text. In the movie I saw, the girl is self-sufficient and intellectually curious, but she also lives in her own head a bit (not entirely of her own volition) and longs for parents who dote on her and make her treats, to the extent that she lacks perspective on what getting what she wants might entail long-term. This, to me, is what the movie is about: a child putting her parents in perspective, and saving them despite having been let down by them.
It’s a hero’s-journey plot, so when she undertakes the mission, it didn’t read to me as noteworthy that she’s a girl — she’s the hero, so of course she undertakes the mission. Hero’s journeys tend to have secondary characters whose knowledge or skills help the hero at a critical moment; that’s Wybie, so of course he helps her out. This is how I came to the story, as an archetypal plot that has certain roles to which gender, structurally, is not relevant; I didn’t see it as a girl-power tale that then got bent to satisfy traditional gender roles.
Put another way: Aeneas got his ass bailed out a bunch of times. He’s the hero. He’s on a journey. He gets the benefit of flanking. In charge of various flanking maneuvers is his mom, who is Venus, so that’s a little awkward for him, but still: he’s the hero. He gets wingmen. Period. Some of them save the day, others get killed, sometimes it’s both. But this is probably why the “Coraline can’t save herself” aspect isn’t bothersome to me — when you examine it closely, MOST heroes and heroines don’t save themselves. Sir Gawain doesn’t, Luke Skywalker doesn’t, Newland Archer doesn’t (this is a different discussion, but anyway), Ulysses doesn’t, Nick Carraway doesn’t.
The existence of the boy in the story doesn’t presume his superiority or necessity. It presumes the nature of the story. Is my belief.
On a not unrelated note: Dunkin Donuts coffee? Effective!
Indeed, if you changed Coraline to a boy and Wybie to a girl (or both were boys, or both were girls) you would barely have to change anything other than the pronouns.
Heck, with a bit of artful dodging, you could make the entire movie without EVER telling the viewers whether Coraline was a boy or a girl!
@Shannon: I blithely clicked on the link; pssh, button eyes don’t bother me. Ahem. Correction: button eyes didn’t bother me, because GYAAAAAH.
Also: I hereby claim An Expression of Hysterical Enthusiasm for the title of my next album.
“This, to me, is what the movie is about: a child putting her parents in perspective, and saving them despite having been let down by them.”
Yep that’s what the book is about in my opinion. Also a bit of learning that you are not the only person in the world and maybe interacting with it (the world) is a not necessarily a bad thing.
I listened to the audiobook with my sister and her daughter (who was 9 at the time) during a road trip, and we were all transfixed. It is read by Gaiman, and he’s just such a great reader. Spooky fun! (I’ve subsequently listened to Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book on my own commute, and loved them too).