Coraline (film)

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Coraline
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Henry Selick
Produced by	Claire Jennings
Written by	Screenplay Henry Selick Novel Neil Gaiman
Starring	Dakota Fanning Teri Hatcher Keith David Robert Bailey Jr. John Hodgman Jennifer Saunders Dawn French Ian McShane
Music by	Bruno Coulais They Might Be Giants
Cinematography	Pete Kozachik
Editing by	Christopher Murrie
Studio	LAIKA
Distributed by	Focus Features Universal Pictures International
Release date(s)	February 6, 2009
Running time	100 min.[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million[2]
Gross revenue	$120,154,106[3]

Coraline is a 2009 American animated stop-motion 3-D fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel of the same name. It was produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features. Written and directed by Henry Selick, it was released widely in US theaters on February 6, 2009, after a world premiere at the Portland International Film Festival.

The film made $16.85 million during opening weekend, ranking third at the box office.^[4] As of September 2009, the film has grossed over $120 million worldwide.

Plot

As an alternate beginning, a window opens and a stuffed doll resembling an African-American girl (later revealed to be the Sweet Ghost Girl) is transformed, by a pair of spidery hands made of sewing needles transforms it into a white girl with blue hair, a yellow raincoat and yellow Wellington boots. The doll is then tossed back out of the window.

Meanwhile, Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) and her parents, Mel and Charlie Jones (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) leave their relatively comfortable lives in Pontiac, Michigan and move into the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon, which is a converted mansion that they share with retired actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French) and retired Russian circus performer Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane). Coraline's parents are busy working on a gardening catalog, which leaves them with little time for Coraline. She meets Wybourne "Wybie" Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.), a talkative neighborhood boy and his nameless black cat (Keith David) while exploring her new home. Wybie has been told to avoid the house by his grandmother (who is the landlady of the Pink Palace), as her twin sister had disappeared there years ago as a child. The next day, Wybie gives Coraline a button-eyed doll that has an uncanny resemblance to her. She also finds a small locked door that had been wallpapered over, and when she insists her mother unlock it, she is surprised to find nothing but a brick wall.

That night, Coraline is awoken by the sound of mice, and follows their trail to the small door. Opening it, she finds a passageway instead of the brick wall, and crawls through it. On the opposite side, she finds herself in the "other world", which is inhabited by button eyed doppelgangers of her parents, the other mother and the other father. The "other parents" seem to be much warmer and attentive than Coraline's real parents, particularly her other mother, who does everything she can to impress Coraline. Coraline continues to return to the other world and is entertained by "other" versions of Wybie and the neighbors. But when she falls asleep, she finds herself back in her normal world. Coraline's attempts to compare her normal world with that of the other world raises tension between her and her mother, who slowly tries to be more affectionate to Coraline.

On her third visit to the other world, Coraline sees the black cat she saw earlier on. He warns her of the dangers of the other mother, but Coraline doesn't listen. Later, after a show performed for her by the other Miss Spink and Forcible, Coraline's other parents offer to let her stay there forever, but only if she agrees to allow them to sew buttons in her eyes. Scared, Coraline rejects the offer and tries to go to sleep, but finds she's unable to return to her normal world. When Coraline refuses to call the other mother her real mother, she becomes angry and transforms into a wretched witch, trapping Coraline in a mirror until she's "ready to be a loving daughter". In the mirror, Coraline meets the ghosts of three button eyed children, including that of Wybie's grandmother's sister, who explain the other mother or "the beldam" kidnaps children from the real world, sewing buttons over their eyes with the promise of a happier life, and slowly consumes their souls. They also explain that the rag dolls are actually the beldam's spies. Just as she promises to find the childrens' eyes to free their souls, she is rescued from the mirror by the other Wybie, who helps her back into her world.

Back home, Coraline finds her parents have disappeared. Coraline visits the real Miss Spink and Forcible, who give her a seeing stone made from old candy for protection. After seeing an image of her parents shivering in the mirror, she realizes they have been kidnapped by the other mother. After preparing herself for the mission ahead, Coraline returns to the other world, and demands that the beldam return her parents. Coraline then challenges the beldam to a game to find her parents and the eyes of the three children. If she loses, she will stay in the other mother's world and let her sew buttons on her eyes. If she wins, then everyone will be freed.

Coraline, with the help of the seeing stone and the cat, is able to recover the three eyes. As she recovers the eyes, the other world starts to de-materialize before her. The beldam (now a monstrous spider-like wretch) throws the seeing stone into a fire, and then demands Coraline to reveal where her parents are. Knowing the beldam will never let her leave, Coraline tricks her into opening the little door. The cat then spots her parents inside a snowglobe and tells Coraline where they really are. Though the beldam attempts to trap her in a spider web, Coraline and the cat are able to escape, closing the door on and severing the beldam's hand. Coraline finds her parents are back, having successfully gotten their catalog published, with no memory of the incident. That night, the freed ghost children tell Coraline through a dream that her task is not done, and that the beldam will try to retrieve the key.

Coraline quickly gets the key and attempts to throw it down a well nearby. Just before she drops the key down the well, the hand arrives and attacks her. However, Wybie shows up at the last minute, they both manage to destroy the hand. Together, they drop the pieces of the hand and the key in the well, ending the beldam's threat. Wybie reveals that he came to believe Coraline's story after finding an old photograph of his grandmother and her sister holding a button-eyed doll. The next day, Coraline has a garden party with her neighbors to celebrate the success of the garden catalog and the defeating of the other mother. Wybie's grandmother joins them and Coraline begins to tell her everything that has happened. At the Pink Palace sign, we see the cat licking himself. He stands up and gives us a mysterious look, disappearing behind the sign, probably telling us that the magic isn't over.

Cast

Coraline listens to the ghost children in the other mother's mirror cell.

• Dakota Fanning as Coraline Jones, the brave, clever, curious protagonist and a self-proclaimed 11-year-old explorer. She is aggravated by crazy grownups (as they all seem to be), not being taken seriously for her young age and outgoing demeanor, and people constantly mistaking her name for Caroline. Neil Gaiman describes her as "full of 'vim' and 'spunk' and all those wonderful old-fashioned words." She and Wybie have showed signs of having a slight "love-hate relationship". In the film, she has blue hair.
• Teri Hatcher as Mel Jones, Coraline's busy mother, and the more attentive Other Mother. Her real mother is a writer working on a gardening catalog. Her husband, Charlie, calls her "the boss", as she is the one who keeps her family in line. She loves her daughter, but is very busy and doesn't always give her the attention that Coraline thinks she needs. The other mother, the main antagonist, is the creator of the other world and its inhabitants, and, as Teri Hatcher describes her, the seemingly "perfect mom, because she's a perfect cook and has the perfect answer to every question, and later on she becomes quite monstrous". Her true form is a spider-like witch, with a bony face and hands fashioned from sewing needles. The three ghost children refer to her as "the beldam", an archaic word meaning "hag or witch".
• John Hodgman as Charlie Jones, Coraline's father, and the Other Father. John Hodgman described him as "the kind of guy who walks around a banana peel and falls into a manhole". Author Neil Gaiman describes him as a man who "does that thing that parents do when they embarrass their kids and somehow think they're being cool". The other father is a singer-pianist, as well as a gardener. He acts like the other mother's slave, showing a scared and traumatized attitude, and is later transformed into a melancholic, pathetic pumpkin-like creature and forced to be Coraline's first obstacle, presumably for giving Coraline too much information.
• Keith David as The Cat, a nameless black cat from Coraline's world, who appears and disappears at will (much like the Cheshire Cat), and has the ability to speak in the other world. He forms a bond with Coraline and acts as her guide and mentor throughout her journey, both in the real world and the other world. He hates rats and is often tended by Wybie, although Wybie claims he is a feral cat.
• Robert Bailey Jr. as Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat, the strange, nervous 11-year-old grandson of Coraline's landlady. Wybie is a character introduced for the film adaptation so that the viewer "wouldn't have a girl walking around, occasionally talking to herself." He wears a metallic skull mask with a three-piece turret lens, as well as a handmade motorized bicycle used to patrol the woods. He is known to be overly talkative and annoying. Coraline calls him a "psycho nerd," a "jerk wad," and "Why-Were-You-Born." His other world counterpart, the Other Wybie is very sweet and has been rendered incapable of speech by the other mother as she thought Coraline would prefer him that way. He later turns out to be one of the most helpful people Coraline finds in the other world, but is punished and eventually destroyed by the other mother for his disobedience. It's implied that Wybie and Coraline appear to have a love/hate relationship, which seems to be hinted throughout the film whether Coraline is in the real world or other world.
• Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French as Miss Spink (April) and Miss Forcible (Miriam) respectively, a pair of retired burlesque actresses. They own several Scottish Terriers (including the stuffed remains of their dead ones) and talk in theater jargon, often referencing their time as actresses. The Other Spink and Forcible are young, beautiful, Shakespeare-quoting acrobats (briefly wearing costumes resembling their real world counterparts) and their dogs behave like humans. They are later transformed into a two-headed beast made of stale taffy (a reference to the stale candy they serve Coraline in the real world), and their dogs into light-sensitive bats.
• Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky (his full name is Sergi Aleksandr Bobinsky, and friends call him Mr. B), one of Coraline's neighbors. He is a blue-skinned Russian giant who once trained as a gymnast and lives on a steady diet of beets. While not explained in the film, his blue skin is due to his time as a Liquidator, for which he wears a Hero of Chernobyl medal on his "wife beater"^[5]. Coraline's mother believes him to be a drunk. He seems to understand what his mice tell him, sending messages from them to Coraline, proven true by pronouncing her name right. the other Bobinsky is the ringmaster of a circus of rats disguised as jumping mice, and is later transformed into a plethora of rats.
• Carolyn Crawford as Mrs. Lovat, Wybie's grandmother and the owner of the Pink Palace Apartments. She originally grew up in the old Victorian mansion with her twin sister who mysteriously vanished. Believing that someone 'stole' her sister, Mrs. Lovat moved out of her childhood home, and divided it into three apartments, which she rents. Afraid of the beldam claiming another child, she did not allow any tenants with 'kids' to rent the apartments, nor does she allow Wybie to enter it.

Production

At its peak, the film involved the efforts of 450 people,^[6] including from 30^[7] to 35^[6] animators and digital designers in the Digital Design Group (DDG) directed by Dan Casey and more than 250 technicians and designers.^[7] One crew member was hired specifically to knit miniature sweaters and other clothing for the puppet characters, using knitting needles as thin as human hair.^[6]

Coraline was staged in a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m²) warehouse in Hillsboro.^[6][7] The stage was divided into 50 lots,^[8] which played host to nearly 150 sets.^[6] Among the sets were three miniature Victorian mansions, a 42-foot (12.8 m) apple orchard, and a model of Ashland, Oregon including tiny details such as banners for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.^[7]

Release

Focus Features distributed the film. Coraline appeared at Comic-Con 2007. A trailer was shown with the films Beowulf, U2 3D, Twilight, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Inkheart, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, My Bloody Valentine 3D, and The Tale of Despereaux.^{[citation needed]}

Reception

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Coraline was acclaimed by critics. As of May 2009, the film has an 88% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes,^[9] and a 80 out of 100 at Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[10]

Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer asked "Is it premature to assign it classic status?"

Film critic Leonard Maltin of Entertainment Tonight called the film "the best 3-D movie I've ever seen," and "a beautiful piece of work on every level".

Pete Hammond of Hollywood.com called it "a visual stunner that takes animated films to new heights".

Tom Maurstad of The Dallas Morning News wrote that "sweet and creepy blend beautifully", and added that Coraline "is the best kind of children's entertainment — smartly told and deeply felt."

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called the film "an adventurous movie with brains, personality, a look and a knack for inducing shivers."

Peter Howell of the Toronto Star said that it "leaps off the screen, whether you see it in 3-D or not."

Jennie Punter wrote in the Globe and Mail that Coraline is "quite possibly the best 3-D movie ever made."

David Edelstein said the film is "a bona fide fairy tale" that needed a "touch less entrancement and a touch more … story":^[11]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times called the film "exquisitely realized" with a "slower pace and a more contemplative tone than the novel. It is certainly exciting, but rather than race through ever noisier set pieces toward a hectic climax in the manner of so much animation aimed at kids, Coraline lingers in an atmosphere that is creepy, wonderfully strange and full of feeling.^[12] Scott concludes that the film is "grounded in the pluck and common sense of its heroine, who is resilient, ingenious and magically real."

Box office

According to Paul Dergarabedian, a movie business analyst with Media by Numbers, for the film to succeed it needed a box office comparable to Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which grossed $16 million its opening weekend and ended up making more than $192 million worldwide; prior to the film's release, Dergarabedian thought Laika "should be really pleased" if it made close to $10 million on its opening weekend.^[7]

In its US opening weekend, the film made $16.85 million, ranking third at the box office.^[4] It made $15 million on its second weekend, bringing its U.S. total up to $35.6 million, $25.5 million of which coming from 3D presentations.^[13] As of November 2009, the film has grossed $75,286,229 in the United States and Canada and $123,106,072 worldwide.^[3]

Home Media

The film was released in the USA on DVD and Blu-ray on July 21, 2009. A 3-D version comes with four sets of 3-D glasses—specifically the green-magenta anaglyph image.

Coraline was released in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-ray on October 12, 2009. A 3-D version of the film was also released on a 2-Disc Collector's Edition.

The DVD opened to first week sales of 1,036,845 and over $19 million in revenue. Total sales stand at 2,132,928 and almost $39 million in revenue.^[14]

Other media

The soundtrack for Coraline on E1 Music (formerly Koch Records) features songs performed by French composer Bruno Coulais with one, "Other Father Song", by They Might Be Giants. The Other Father's singing voice is provided by John Linnell, one of the singers from the band. They wrote ten songs for the film; when a melancholy tone was decided, all but one were cut. Coulais's score features choral pieces sung in a nonsense language. It was released digitally February 3, and in stores since February 24, 2009.

The website for Coraline involves an interactive exploration game where the player can scroll through Coraline's world. It won the 2009 Webby Award for "Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics," both by the people and the Webby organization. It was also nominated for the Webby "Movie and Film" category.^[15]

On June 16, 2008, D3 Publisher announced the release of a video game based on the film. It was developed by Papaya Studio for the Wii and PlayStation 2 and by Art Co. for Nintendo DS. It was released on January 27, 2009, close to the film's theatrical release.^[16]

Animation technology

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The film's creators used 3D printing technology from Objet Geometries. The Polyjet matrix technology allowed animators to create thousands of models to animate the characters and sets from the film.^[17]

Filmmakers used three of the cutting-edge 3D printing systems from Objet in the development and production of the film. Thousands of high-quality 3D models, ranging from facial expressions to doorknobs were printed in 3D using the Polyjet matrix systems, which enable the fast transformation of CAD (computer-aided design) drawings into high-quality 3D models. The characters of Coraline could potentially exhibit over 208,000 facial expressions.^[17]

References

External links

• Official site
• Coraline at the Internet Movie Database
• Coraline at Allmovie
• Coraline at Box Office Mojo
• Coraline at Metacritic
• Coraline at Rotten Tomatoes