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Coraline (film)

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Coraline
Theatrical release poster
Directed byHenry Selick
Written byScreenplay
Henry Selick
Novella
Neil Gaiman
Produced byClaire Jennings
StarringDakota Fanning
Teri Hatcher
Keith David
Robert Bailey Jr.
John Hodgman
Jennifer Saunders
Dawn French
Ian McShane
CinematographyPete Kozachik
Edited byChristopher Murrie
Music byBruno Coulais
They Might Be Giants
Production
company
Distributed byFocus Features
Release date
February 6, 2009
Running time
100 minutes[1]
CountryTemplate:FilmUS
LanguageEnglish
Budget$60 to $70 million[2]
Box office$114,795,238[3]

Coraline is a Template:Fy American animated stop-motion 3-D sci-fi fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel Coraline. 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 July 2009, the film has grossed over $110 million worldwide.

Plot

In a prologue-esque scene, a strange set of metallic hands are seen catching a doll of an African-American girl, changing it into a doll with blue hair, a raincoat, and freckles. They then toss the doll through a window, where it floats off into darkness.

Coraline Jones moves into the Pink Palace apartments, which she immediately labels as boring and lifeless. She makes attempts to have fun and talk with her mother and father, but due to their tremendous workload they constantly neglect and ignore her. During her walks outside, however, Coraline finds a new (unwanted) friend, Wybie, who is trailed by a seemingly-feral black cat. Later, while "exploring" her apartment, Coraline comes upon a small, locked door covered with wallpaper. Her mother frustratedly grabs a unique-looking key from the key drawer, only to find after opening it that the tunnel/corridor beyond is sealed with bricks.

That night Coraline is woken by a strange sound. She spots a mouse spying on her, and chases it downstairs, only to see it slip through the small door. She follows, and finds that the bricks are gone, replaced with an eerie blue tunnel. She crawls through it, to find an exact replica of her apartment. When she walks into the Other kitchen, she finds a prettier duplicate of her mother whose eyes have been replaced with black buttons. She claims to be Coraline's "Other Mother" and Coraline finds her to be much kinder and attentive then her real counterpart. Within the Other World she also meets her Other Father, who as well as being creative (such as creating an assist that controls his movements, allowing him to "play" the piano) is also much more fun and handsome than her real father. After enjoying a roast-chicken dinner with her Other parents, Coraline goes to sleep in her other room (which is of course better than her real one). She wakes to find herself back in the real world, with the door bricked up once again.

Over the next few days, Coraline visits the Other world, simultaneously becoming more and more bored with reality. The black cat is revealed to be intelligent and able to talk while in the Other world. Though he warns her of impending danger, Coraline ignores him. After going to a circus and a theater with the Other Wybie (a Wybie that can't talk, which pleases Coraline very much) hosted by her Other Neighbours, the Other Parents make Coraline an offer. They say that she can stay in the Other World, forever and always, if only she allows them to sew buttons in her eyes. Terrified, Coraline excuses herself from dinner, locking herself in her bedroom and desperately going to sleep.

She wakes up to find that this time she has remained in the Other World, trapped there indefinitely. She ventures into the rest of the house, to find that it has become noticeably gloomier. She attempts to confront the now messy and grim Other Father, but the results are rather disappointing. The mechanical hand-controlling gloves that make up the piano assist scold the Other Father for talking without the Other Mother around. When he gives her too much information, they turn on him and attack, prompting a horrified Coraline to run away. After observing the rest of the Other world, she meets up with the black cat, who shows her that the Pink Palace apartments and its surroundings are the only thing in the Other world, with anything outside that an empty whiteness . She then leaves the cat to confront the Other Mother.

Coraline walks inside and makes a break for the door, only to be surprised by the Mother. When Coraline demands to go home, the Other Mother changes dramatically, growing tall, thin and sinister. She drags Coraline through the house and traps her behind a magic mirror, leaving her until she "is ready to be a loving daughter". Coraline then meets three ghosts, who were also the newfound children of the one they call the "Beldam." They reveal that long ago they allowed the seemingly caring Other Mother to sew the buttons in their eyes, only for her to grow bored with them and seal them away for eternity. They beg Coraline to find their real eyes, so they may leave for the afterlife, but the frightened girl is pulled from the mirror before she can answer. The Other Wybie, who released her, reveals that the Beldam used her needle and thread (seen in the prologue) to sew his mouth up in a twisted smile, after he looked too guilty about the Other Mother's intentions. The Beldam hears them, and after a chase through the house, the Other Wybie sacrifices himself to get Coraline safely through the door back to reality.

Unfortunately, Coraline sees in the mirror that the Other Mother has kidnapped her real parents, forcing her to return to the counterfeit world. Using the cat's advice, she challenges the Beldam to a game, which the witch has a taste for; Coraline resolves to find all the Ghost Children's eyes and her real parents. She ventures into the garden (which is in the shape of her face), and using a triangular trinket with a hole in it given to her by her elderly neighbours, spots a ghost eye. But she finds that it is connected to a giant steel mechanized praying mantis, which, using the piano-assist, is forcing the Other Father to kill Coraline. But the wretched, tortured, and still-kind man breaks the piano assist, allowing him to give Coraline the eye. After the Other Father is obliterated by the praying mantis's actions, Coraline explores the theater and the circus, grabbing the other eyes just in time. The Other world is destroyed, and Coraline finds the Other Mother now transformed into a hideous, skeletal spider creature. She tricks the thing into opening the door, promptly hurling the black cat at her afterward. The cat tears out the Beldam's button eyes, and just as Coraline is making a clean getaway through the portal, the Other Mother tears apart the shattered remnants of the fake world, turning it into a massive spiderweb.

But Coraline evades the creature's attempts to grab her, rushing through the door. As she attempts to lock it, though, the Other Mother pulls on the door, reaching through the gap and towards Coraline with her spare hand (which can be recognised from the prologue as the metallic, long-fingered body part). But the rescued souls of the ghost children help her, and the door slams shut, severing the Beldam's hand. Leaving behind the incoherent screams of the Other Mother, Coraline rushes into the arms of her real (and seemingly more loving than before) parents. After dreaming of the released ghost kids, the happy spirits warn her to destroy the key, to seal it away where no one can ever find it again. Coraline wakes, and sets off for the abandoned well near her home, the place which she deems right.

In a final, desperate attempt, the Beldam sends her reanimated hand through the cracks in the door, which instantly attacks Coraline. But Wybie suddenly turns up at the last moment, risking his life to smash the hand. Together, Coraline and Wybie toss the hand fragments and the key deep into the well, ridding the world of the Other Mother forever. The following day Coraline hosts a garden party, with all her neighbours invited. The camera zooms out, revealing the garden to be in the shape of the beldam, but if it is worked at more, it could be a duplicate of the "Coraline garden" in the Other World. It also reveals the cat on top of the Pink Palace Apartments Logo and dissapears showing the Coraline Logo in the credits.

Cast

File:Coraline preview shot.PNG
Coraline Jones, as she appears in the film.
  • 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 also appear to have a "love/hate" relationship.
  • 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". The three ghost children refer to her as "the Beldam", an archaic word meaning "hag or witch". She seems to "collect" children simply because she cannot stand to live in loneliness forever, but eventually she becomes bored of them and locks them away.
  • 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 and is later transformed into a melancholy, pathetic pumpkin-like creature by the her, 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, 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. Wybie helps Coraline destroy the Other Mother's hand in the end of the film. Wybie and Coraline also seem to have a "love/hate" relationship.
  • Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French as Miss Spink and Miss Forcible 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 Alexander 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. Coraline's mother believes him to be a drunk. 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. She is afraid of the beldam claiming another child, and did not allow any tenants with 'kids' to rent the apartments, nor does she allow Wybie to enter it.

Production

Coraline [was] a huge risk. But these days in animation, the safest bet is to take a risk.

— Henry Selick, [5]

At its peak, the film involved the efforts of 450 people,[5] including from 30[6] to 35[5] animators and digital designers in the Digital Design Group (DDG) directed by Dan Casey and more than 250 technicians and designers.[6] 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.[5]

Coraline was staged in a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) warehouse which was longer than a Hillsboro city block; the building was formerly the home of a company called Southern Plastic Mold.[5][6] The stage was divided into 50 lots,[7] which played host to nearly 150 sets.[5] 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.[6]

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

Coraline was acclaimed by critics. As of May 2009, the film has an 88% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes,[8] and a 80 out of 100 at Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9]

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":[10]

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.[11] 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.[6]

In its U.S. 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.[12] As of June 2009, the film has grossed $75,229,518 in the United States and Canada and $104,975,138 worldwide.[3]

DVD and Blu-ray

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on July 21, 2009. A 3D version is included with a set of 4 3D glasses, specifically the green-magenta type.

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. They Might Be Giants 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.[13]

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.[14]

Animation technology

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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

Triva

In a conversation upon meeting Wybie, Coraline states that she is from Pontiac, Michigan. Which is later reinforced visually by Coraline's father wearing a Michigan State sweatshirt.

References

  1. ^ "Coraline rated PG by the BBFC". BBFC. January 29, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-05. Run Time 100m 19s
  2. ^ Schuker, Lauren (March 27, 2009). "Film: Taking it to another dimension: Can 3-D movies save Hollywood?". Wall Street Journal. p. W10.
  3. ^ a b "Coraline". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  4. ^ a b "Moviegoers into Into You". The Hollywood Reporter. February 8, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  5. ^ a b c d e f McNichol, Tom (February 2009). "Hollywood Knights". Portland Monthly. Retrieved 2009-02-15.
  6. ^ a b c d e Mesh, Aaron (February 4, 2009). "Suspended Animation". Willamette Week. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  7. ^ "Backstage view (19th of 21 backlot production photos)". David Strick's Hollywood Backlot. Los Angeles Times. August 7, 2008. Retrieved 2009-02-15. Backstage view of the facility in which Coraline's stop-motion animation is filmed in Portland, Oregon. The Coraline stage is divided into approximately 50 units separated by black curtains. Each unit contains a different set that is in the process of being dressed, lit, rigged or shot.
  8. ^ "Coraline Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. February 5, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  9. ^ "Coraline (2009): Reviews". Metacritic. February 5, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  10. ^ Edelstein, David (February 1, 2009). "What You See Is What You Get". New York Magazine. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  11. ^ Scott, A.O. (February 6, 2009). "Cornered in a Parallel World". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  12. ^ "Holdovers Live Under Killer Friday Debut". Box Office Mojo. February 15, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  13. ^ "Webby Awards". Retrieved 2009-06-13.
  14. ^ Remo, Chris (June 16, 2008). "D3 Announces Coraline And Shaun The Sheep Adaptations". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2008-06-16.


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