A Review of The Film 'Coraline'

“Coraline” is a film based on an 11 year old girl who has multiple adventures to an alternate universe, she has to go through a small door in order to enter this new world. This film is rated PG, but it is more suitable for adults than for children, it displays more of a creepy vibe throughout the movie. I would say that “coraline” involves twisted imagery and has a psychological depth. It makes you question whether if it is ok to play this movie for your child or not. Parents should be aware that Coraline will scare young kids; the movie can get pretty dark and it has deep meanings through the smallest things.

The imagery of the ‘other father’ which is basically being control by “the other mother”, the character basically serves as a puppet. Another character that has an impact in the movie is “wybie” in the alternate universe his mouth was sewed together by the “other mother” in order for him to not expose her actual plan to coraline, this is an another form of manipulation, Or how the three lost souls of the children have been trapped in the other dimension since the “other mother” has them captured as prisoners. It sounds like a creepy ritual to me. I would like to believe that nothing in this or any movie is random. Sets, animation and everything are designed with intent and a purpose. That purpose is to serve a visual and psychological meaning.

Writer Henry Selick which was also the director and novelist Neil Gaiman definitely expressed mature themes in this film for example: being careful what you wish for, thinking the grass is always greener and being disappointed in your parents which I believe these are themes that are best suited for older kids. Do not get me wrong, the film is quite interesting and it always keeps you on edge but I don’t think it should be a film that’s played for children.

Language also plays a big role in this film. Coraline’s language throughout the film mostly includes insulting words such as ‘jerk wad’ and ‘idiot’.The way the characters behavior says a lot about them. Oh and did I forget to mention how a non-reverent, non-prayerful invocation of deity occurs at least twice in the film.

In conclusion when I was younger I viewed “Coraline” as magical tale about appreciating what you’ve got and not falling for things that are too good to be true, I did not see anything deep of it but as I grew older and started to watch the movie again, and I started to notice that the movie’s dark and twisted imagery hints to deeper concepts, concepts that I believe should not been exposed to younger viewers. I would honestly not recommend this film to children; Henry Selick was targeting the wrong age group. 

Works Cited

1. IMDb. (n.d.). Coraline (2009) - IMDb. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/
2. Selick, H. (Director). (2009). Coraline [Motion picture]. United States: Focus Features.
3. Gaiman, N. (2002). Coraline. HarperCollins.
4. Sanderson, B. (2009). Coraline. School Library Journal, 55(2), 99-100. doi: 10.1086/521595
5. Bould, M. (2014). Coraline: From page to screen. In N. Gaiman (Ed.), Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century (pp. 45-54). McFarland.
6. Wenzel, J. (2014). Coraline's Haunted House: The Fragmented Lives of Children. The Explicator, 72(3), 202-206. doi: 10.1080/00144940.2014.940699
7. Troost, C. (2015). The Monstrous Child in Contemporary Children's Film: Reimagining Agency, Identities, and the Other. Palgrave Macmillan.
8. Kaastra, L., & McGillis, R. (2017). "Don't go through strange doors": The ideology of the adolescent girl in Coraline. In R. McGillis (Ed.), The Child in Film: Tears, Fears, and Fairy Tales (pp. 55-68). Wayne State University Press.
9. Peña, R. (2019). Coraline: The Graphic Novel and Film. In Animated Landscapes (pp. 203-216). Springer.
10. O'Sullivan, T. (2020). Gaiman's Coraline and the Gothic tradition. In A Cultural History of the Gothic in the 21st Century (pp. 63-78). Bloomsbury.