It’s practically an iron-clad rule of turning books into movies: the movies are never as good as the book. … right? Well, say hello to the black sheep of the books-turned-movies film family: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

 What began as a bedtime story for his eldest daughter, and then later finished as a bedtime story for his youngest will be hitting the big screens (in 3D no less!) on February 6th. Featuring mysterious keys that fit into similarly mysterious doors, Other Mothers, eccentric neighbours that are equal parts disturbing and endearing, and button eyes, Coraline is not a typical run-of-the-mill children’s tale; it is a children’s story that heralds back to the origins of fairy tales, full of darkly delightful themes and imagery that makes the hearts of children and adults alike jump and skip and positively frolic. And all just in time to provide a much-needed breath of fresh cinematic air in the midst of what amounts to the annual Nile flooding of romantic Valentine’s comedies/tearjerkers. The timing couldn’t have been better, in this author’s humble opinion.

Due to a number of amazingly lucky turns of coincidence, I had the chance to attend a preview screening of said movie at the Scotiabank theatre this Monday. Neil Gaiman himself was also in attendance. The exact details of the chain of events that led from my gleeful yelps at one am on Saturday night to my presence in the assigned theatre come Monday morning are not of particular importance or interest, although I do suspect that I have now used up the entirety of my Strategic Reserves of Karma for the next decade or so. (And I was saving up for the 2012 Armageddon too. Sigh.)

Thus it came to pass that at approximately 6:45 pm on Monday the 2nd, I was jostling into the Scotiabank Theatre along with many other excited, chattering folk of all ages and walks of life for the preview screening of the Coraline movie. In a word, it was good. In two words, very good. And in slightly more words:

Original concept and novel by Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Stardust, Good Omens) and directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Coraline is a stop-motion animation film rendered in 3D – the first of its kind. It took over 7 years to produce, with each movement, each expression painstakingly positioned nanometre by nanometre. “A day where they managed to garner ten seconds of usable footage,” Neil Gaiman tells us during his brief introduction, “was considered a good day.” (And here I was worried about taking three whole days to finish this piece.)

Humour aside, I was absolutely astounded at the amount of work and dedication and sheer determination that had been put into the film. Not to mention impressed with how well put-together it was. If you’ve read the book, you’ll have an idea of some of the difficulties the team must have faced in adapting it for the movie medium; Coraline, our beloved heroine, is much of an adventurous loner and spends most of the book monologuing with herself… which is rather hard to depict continuously in film format. Selick’s answer to this dilemma? The dorky, socially awkward, film-only character Wyborn (aka Wybie aka Why Were You Born?) who follows (“Stalks!” Coraline accuses) Coraline around and serves as an odd sort of sidekick. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Film-only, pffft. Laaaame.” Well… no. He is as quirky and eccentric a character as any of the original cast and, put simply, simply adorkable. He serves his main function of allowing Coraline someone to babble and rant and theorize at perfectly, making her, if possible, more lovable than the original by highlighting her scrappy, stubborn streak, with the added bonus that seeing cotton candy stuck all of his Other Self was an unexpectedly genius touch of humour.

Of course, there were many other memorable moments from the film, of which I will not be listing comprehensively because that would take simply too long. Very special nods, however, must go to the concept of the Other World snapdragons and Mouse Circus performance, which were two of my personal favourites.

Coraline is the perfect antithesis for some of the sweet, sappy (and let’s face it, downright cheesy) Valentine’s fever that has already begun to rumble and will, no doubt, soon erupt in an explosion of pinks and whites and red roses and dark chocolates and Snoopy proposing for you to be his from the face of shiny cards. With a beautifully intricate balance of light-hearted humour and subtly creepy … creepiness (and blatantly creepy button-eyed Other People), it invokes both the wonder of childhood imaginations and the delicious thrill of a really good, genuinely frightening ghost story. And even then, it is so much more than the sum of those parts.

It’s a bone-chilling, gasp-in-your-seat, “how did they even do that?”, “oooh” and “aaaah”, world-tumbling, down-the-rabbit-hole(-and-back!) kind of movie.

Really, need I say more?

WHEN: Starting February 6th, 2009 (from reliable sources: the 3D version will only be out for about 3 weeks, so don’t procrastinate!)
WHAT: Coraline the movie (hurry to catch the 3D version!)
WHERE: A theatre near you! (go; go now!)
WHY: … wait, you’re still asking me this?

P.S. If anyone is intrigued further, check out the official movie site: www.coraline.com, where you can upload pictures and replace your own eyes with button eyes of your choice, amongst other adventures.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Film, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.