S.A. McClellon · Follow
28 min read · Aug 31, 2023
Laika Studio’s first feature project, Coraline, was released on February 6, 2009. Fourteen years after its theatrical release, Laika Studios teamed up with Cinemark theaters to feature the film from August 14th to August 15th, then again from August 27th to August 28th, 2023. At the time of writing this article, the re-release of the film along with never-before-seen behind the scenes footage brought in over $7.3 million in the domestic box office.
Coraline is based on Neil Gaiman’s 2002 horror novel under the same title. A young woman named Coraline Jones moves with her parents from Pontiac, Michigan to the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon. But she soon realizes that the Pink Palace is the home of a witch who steals the souls of lonely children.
Not only is the stop-motion animation smooth and vivid almost like 3D animation, but the storytelling is complex with many hidden messages about the characters, the story, and the world Coraline lives in.
Let’s take a deep dive into the mysterious world of Coraline!
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers! If you have not seen Coraline and do not want to be spoiled, DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT!
After the title card, the film opens up with a button-eyed doll floating through a window. A pair of hands made from sewing needled gently grabs the doll and begins working to make it look like our main character, Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning). The tools that the mysterious figure is working with are akin to embalming tools used for preparing a body for a funeral. When the unknown figure is finished with the doll, she sends it back out of the window in search of its new temporary owner.
Back in the real world, Coraline and her parents have just moved in to the Pink Palace Apartments. While her parents work with the movers, Coraline decides to go exploring. Here, she dons her famous yellow swampers and raincoat with her signature blue hair. In the middle of her exploration, she gets spooked by the local black cat and unknowingly stumbles upon the mud-covered secret well she was searching for.
The surface of the well is surrounded by a circle of mushrooms. This is likely meant to represent a summoning circle. While still searching for the well she is standing right on top of, she meets Wybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.) who is the only other kid in the vicinity. He makes a grand entrance by riding up to Coraline on his motorized bike while wearing a mask with three interchangeable spy glasses. This scares Coraline and he hits him in the face with a poison oak branch as he speeds up to her, knocking him off of his bike.
He introduced himself to Coraline and calls her a ‘water witch’, which is a witch who searches for water in dry and barren areas. Coraline is offended by the accusation and asks where the secret well is. Wybie points out that Coraline is standing on it and opens it for her. He also tells her, “It’s supposed to be so deep that if you fell to the bottom and looked up, you’d see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day.”
It turns out that he is best friends with the local cat who brings him dead things in exchange for food. Wybie’s grandmother, Mrs. Lovat (Caroline Crawford) owns the Pink Palace, but lives off of the property and is reluctant to renting the space to people with kids. Coraline asks why, but Wybie says he is not allowed to talk about it for the time being. In the distance, Mrs. Lovat rings a bell and calls for Wybie to come back home. Before Wybie leaves, she informs Coraline that the branch she’s holding is poison oak. She drops the branch in a panic and Wybie speeds off. She inevitably gets a rash on her hand which will be important later.
Back at the house, Coraline tells her mom, Melinda Jones (Teri Hatcher), that she almost fell down a well yesterday. Melinda is hardly listening to Coraline as she is busy writing her garden catalog. Coraline asks if she can go outside, but Melinda says no because it’s raining and she doesn’t want mud in the house. Coraline gets impatient with Melinda ignoring her and decides to go to her dad. Before she leaves, Melinda gives Coraline a doll that Wybie dropped off for her. The doll is the one that was made in the beginning and looks exactly like Coraline. Coraline laments that she’s too old for dolls, but carries it around with her anyway.
Coraline’s dad, Charlie Jones (John Hodgman) is equally as busy as Melinda with the garden catalogue. Coraline asks him if she can go outside, but he says that she can’t go outside if her mom said no. Coraline is still bored, so Charlie gives her a notepad and encourages her to explore the house that is over 100 years old. He just wants her out of his hair so he can work.
Coraline ventures through the house in a short montage. While she does this, she takes her doll with her. She takes note of all of the old appliances along with a painting of a sad boy in a sailor suit who dropped his ice cream cone. The doll disappears for a moment before reappearing near a small door hidden behind a piece of cardboard. Coraline calls for Melinda and asks her to open it. Reluctantly, Melinda finds a strange button key and opens the door for her excited and curious daughter. But Coraline is immediately disappointed when she finds that there are only bricks on the other side. Later that night, Coraline and her family are having a gross-looking dinner made by Charlie. Coraline complains that the food looks like slime and she goes to bed without eating.
Before she goes to sleep, Coraline reminisces about missing her friends in Michigan. That night, she is woken up by jumping mice in her room. She chases them back to the door that was originally bricked up. But she opens is again and finds that it is a colorful portal leading to what looks like her house. But she notices minor changes such as the painting of the boy and his ice cream looking happier and singing coming from the kitchen. Here, she meets the Other Mother, or the Beldam (Teri Hatcher). She looks like a happier and healthier version of Melinda, despite the very obvious black button eyes. The Other Mother introduces herself and instructs her to tell her Other Father (John Hodgman) that dinner is ready.
Confused, but intrigued, Coraline finds the Other Father in his study. Contrary to the Other Mother who looks like Melinda, the Other Father hardly looks like Charlie. He wears brightly-colored clothes and has a healthy full head of hair. Additionally, he has a piano with a mechanism that “plays him” as opposed to him playing it. He sings a short song (sung by John Linnell) that sounds cheerful and celebratory. But the lyrics are meant to warn Coraline and the viewers that as long as Coraline comes around, he and the Other Mother will make their world as appealing as possible and they’ll be watching her every move.
The Other Mother cooks an elaborate dinner with all of Coraline’s favorite foods. When she’s done eating, the Other Mother presents a cake that spells out “Welcome Home”. She tells Coraline that they’ve been waiting for her. She suggest that they play a game, which will be a running theme for the Other Mother. After she says this, she taps her fingers on the table. This tick the Other Mother has provides a sense of uneasiness for Coraline and the audience. Coraline expresses Melinda’s previous worry about tracking mud. The Other Mother and Father love mud and tell Coraline that it can cure poison oak.
While Coraline is intrigued by their kindness, she is still unsure about the situation and asks to go to bed and go home. Her room in the Other World is made up to be a wonderland with talking toys. The picture of her friends on her dresser also talks to her. Before Coraline goes to bed, the Other Mother rubs mud on her poison oak. Coraline wakes up the next morning in her regular bed and dully-colored room. When she instinctively goes to scratch the rash on her hand, she’s amazed to see that is it gone. She checks the door that morning only to see it bricked up once again. Over breakfast, Coraline tells her parents about what she saw. But Melinda and Charlie dismiss it as a dream. To get her out of the house, Melinda suggests that Coraline visits Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French).
Coraline goes to do so, but is interrupted by packages addressed to Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane). The packages turn out to be cheese samples for the mice in his jumping mouse circus. Coraline goes to deliver his packages and Bobinsky appears seemingly out of nowhere. He’s a very tall and flexible Russian acrobat with blue skin a thing for beats. Fans speculate that his blue skin and beet obsession could allude to the Chernobyl Disaster of April 26, 1986, along with the fact that he wears a Chernobyl Liquidator metal on his tattered wife beater.
Bobinsky rants to Coraline about his failed jumping mouse circus while continually getting her name wrong. Before she leaves, he says that the mice are warning her to not go through the small door leading to the Other World. Coraline tells him that the door is bricked up and Bobinsky dismisses the issue. Once he leaves back to his apartment, Coraline visits Miss Spink and Forcible, who own several black Scottish Terriers (alive and taxidermy). According to author Neil Gaiman, the two are a canonical lesbian couple.
The first thing Coraline notices at Miss Spink and Forcible’s house is the doormat that says “NO WHISTLING IN THE HOUSE”. The two are very superstitious, but Miss Spink does the real practice while Miss Forcible is more of an assistant. After a brief chat and serving Coraline tea, Miss Spink offers to read Coraline’s tea leaves to read her future. In the cup, the tea leaves form a black peculiar hand that is similar to the Other Mother’s spider-like hand that is seen later in the film. But Miss Forcible interrupts by saying it looks like a giraffe and the couple has a brief argument over what the shape actually is.
Miss Spink and Forcible tell Coraline three important things: never wear green in your dressing room, acquire a very tall step ladder, and be very, very careful. The first warning eludes to an old theater superstition. Wearing green in your dressing room could bring bad luck during the show by making the performer blend in with the background. The second warning possibly hints at how tall the Other Mother is in her final form. The third warning, of course, warns Coraline to be careful of any potential threats.
Coraline thanks Miss Spink and Forcible for the reading and the tea and goes back outside, where Wybie is hunting banana slugs. During their conversation, Wybie reveals that the reason why Mrs. Lovat does not like renting rooms to tenants with children is because her twin sister disappeared when she was a child. The Pink Palace has a history of children disappearing, as we learn later that two other children before Mrs. Lovat’s sister also went missing.
That night, Coraline decides to go back to the Other World. To prove that it’s real, she sets up cheese as bait for the jumping mice. Sure enough, the mice take the bait and Coraline follows them to the portal to the Other World. The Other Mother greets Coraline and uses the cheddar for the ‘dinner breakfast food’ she is preparing. She instructs Coraline to find the Other Father in the garden, where he shows her the extravagant plants that were constructed to form her face from a birds-eye view. Before they land, he tells her, “Mother said you’d love it, or she knows you like the back of her hand.” This is yet another indication of the Other Mother constantly watching and studying Coraline’s life back in the real world.
After ‘dinner breakfast food’, the Other Mother tells Coraline that the Other Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane) had invited her to his jumping mouse circus. She has also created a new version of Wybie, but he is unable to talk. The Other Mother says, “I thought you would like him more if he spoke a little less. So I fixed him.” On their way to the circus, Coraline asks the Other Wybie if it hurt when the Other Mother “fixed him”. But he quickly changes the subject by showing her a blimp going into the Other Mr. Bobinsky’s apartment.
The apartment is built like a miniature circus with cotton candy canons and and a popcorn machine in the shape of a hen. The jumping mice perform for Coraline and Wybie, with one of the lead mice bouncing on a red ball with a star on it. This ball will be important later. In the grand finale, the Other Mr. Bobinsky makes his entrance in his full circus uniform and thanks her and the Other Wybie for attending the show. Coraline goes back to sleep with the Other Mother, Father, and Wybie by her side. But to her disappointment and frustration, she wakes up back in the real world. Coraline runs downstairs to try to open the door, but this time she finds that it is completely locked.
Coraline, Charlie, and Melinda take a trip downtown. While Charlie drops off their finished garden catalogue to the editors, Coraline tries to tell them about her latest adventure in the Other World. But they dismiss her once again. Coraline and Melinda go back-to-school shopping where the uniforms are very dull and gray. Coraline spots a pair of green and orange gloves on a display and shows them to Melinda, but Melinda tells her to put them back. In her frustration, Coraline says, “My Other Mother would get them.” Melinda snaps back with, “Then maybe she should buy all your clothes.”
On the ride back home, Coraline asks Melinda why she locked the door. Melinda answers that she found rat dropping and thought it would make Coraline feel safer. But Coraline laments that they’re actually jumping mice and her ‘dreams’ aren’t dangerous. Coraline still has a sour attitude when they get home. Melinda offers for Coraline to come grocery shopping with her and that she can pick out something she likes. But Coraline rejects the offer and Melinda leaves Coraline alone at home.
As soon as Melinda leaves, Coraline finds the button key and opens the door to see that the portal is open this time, proving to her that everything she had experienced was real. She crawls through and the Other Mother and Father are not present. But the Other Mother left a gift of new clothes and a delicious lunch along with a note about a theatrical performance put together by the Other Miss Spink and Forcible.
With a full stomach and donning her new clothes, Coraline makes her way to Miss Spink and Forcible’s apartment when she comes across the black cat from the real world. Coraline assumes that it’s a different version of the real cat. But the cat (Keith David) tells her that he is actually the same cat and he is able to come and go as he pleases through small hidden portals. There is no real explanation as to how he can travel in and out of the Other World or how he can talk. In his own words, “I just can.”
The cat reveals that the Other Mother hates cats. Fans speculate that this is because of the Other Mother’s spider-like nature. It is common for cats to hunt spiders, thus she tries to keep him out. But he manages to find other ways back in without her knowing. He also warns Coraline that she may think the Other World is a dream come true, but she could not be more wrong. The cat gets distracted by a noise in the distance and goes to chase it. Coraline dismisses the cat’s warning and goes to the Other Miss Spink and Forcible’s apartment, which has been made into a massive theater with two stories and all of the chairs are filled with hundreds of black Scottish Terriers.
She finds a spot at the front and the Other Wybie is already seated and waiting for her. The show starts with Miss Spink dressed as a mermaid she sings about tricking sailors with her charm. Miss Forcible is dressed as the Birth of Venus (mostly naked) and she sings about alluring people with her beauty. Their song could alude to how the Other Mother is using the charm of her personality and the beauty of the world she had created to lure in and trick Coraline. At the end of the number, the Other Miss Spink and Forcible fight each other for the spotlight and the stage ends up falling apart in a comedic way.
In the second half of their act, the Other Miss Spink and Forcible reveal that they are beautiful younger versions of themselves in body suits. During their swinging trapeze performance, they are reciting a monologue from the Shakespearean play, Hamlet: “What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…” However, they deliberately exclude the final line of the monologue, “and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? No, man delights not me.” This bit of foreshadowing is meant to describe how the beautiful world that the Other Mother has created for Coraline is false and hollow. The “quintessence of dust” is taken literally later on when everything begins to fall apart.
After the show, Wybie and Coraline meet the Other Mother and Father outside. As Coraline goes back to the house with her other parents, the Other Wybie is seen by the Other Mother with a frown on his face. The Other Mother subtly warns Wybie that he needs to keep smiling for her plan to work. In Coraline’s excitement, she expresses that she would like to stay in the Other World forever. The Other Mother tells Coraline that there is just one thing they need to do and she gives Coraline a nearly wrapped box. Coraline opens it, excited to see what’s inside. But her smile quickly fades as she sees that there are two black buttons with a needle and thread. The Other Mother tries to control the situation by saying that Coraline can get them in different colors, but black is traditional.
Coraline is understandably freaked out by the idea of having buttons sewn in her eyes. The Other Mother presses on, saying that Coraline needs to say yes in order for her to stay there. In the heat of the moment, the Other Father says that the needle is so sharp that she won’t feel a thing. But the Other Mother quickly shuts it down with a swift kick to his knee under the table. Still in a panic, Coraline says that she wants to go to bed. The Other Mother and Father stay behind as Coraline bolts up the stairs and barricades the door. All the while, her talking toys and talking photo of her friends are trying to convince her to stay and get the buttons sewn in. But Coraline isn’t hearing any of it and does her best to get to sleep.
She wakes up, expecting to be back in her old room. But she is distraught to see that she is still in the Other World. She goes outside to search for a way out and the cat appears again, asking where she thinks she’s going. Coraline tells him that she is trying to go home. But the further they go into the woods, the less there is to see. Everything beyond what the Other Mother has created is an empty white void because she only created the things that Caroline would enjoy within the borders of the Pink Palace. She essentially talks around the world.
She goes back to the house and finds the Other Father in his study, hitting random keys on his piano. She asks him where the Other Mother is and he tells her that she is resting, but he is not permitted to talk to Coraline when the Other Mother is not there. This is likely because the Other Mother caught on to the Other Father’s potential betrayal. Coraline goes to the common area where the door is. As she reaches for it, a giant dresser drawer in the form of a beetle stands in front of it. The room lights up to reveal furniture designed as bugs with the Other Mother sitting on the couch.
Coraline is scooped up in a walking bug chair and the Other Mother offers her ‘chocolate’, which is really just a box of cocoa beetles. Coraline retaliates against the Other Mother for the first time and demands that she be let go. The Other Mother is immediately angry at Coraline’s tone and scolds her like a mother would. But Coraline reminds The Other Mother that she is not her real mother. The Other Mother demands that Coraline apologizes and Coraline refuses. As the Other Mother counts to three, she reverts to a taller and skinnier humanoid version of herself. The Other Mother grabs Coraline by the nose and drags her to a mirror, which is a portal to a dark room with cement walls and an old wet bet.
The Other Mother tells Coraline, “You may come out when you learn to be a loving daughter,” and isolates her in the room. Here, we meet the three ghost children: a Victorian boy, a country girl, and Mrs. Lovat’s missing sister. They refer to the Other Mother as The Beldam as they tell their story about how they fell into her trap. Like Coraline, they received mysterious dolls that acted as the Other Mother’s spies. Through them, she could see that the children were not happy and lured them in with everything that they could ask for. But unlike Coraline, the ghost children allowed her to sew buttons into their eyes. She devoured their physical bodies and locked their souls away.
Coraline decides that she will find a way to escape and help the ghost children. The ghost children tell Coraline that she has their eyes hidden across the Other World. If she can find them, then their souls will be free. At that moment, a pair of hands reach into the mirror and pull Coraline out of the room. Coraline is spooked and slams the masked person into the wall. But it turns out that it’s the Other Wybie, who has had his mouth sewn into a smile by the Other Mother. He helps Coraline get to the door and escape. Coraline asks him to come with her, but he reveals that his physical body is disintegrating into saw dust and he would not be able to survive in her world.
They open the door and the tunnel is old, brown, and covered in cobwebs. Old clothes and toys are scattered about and it is theorizes that these items belonged to the ghost children. Wybie pushes Coraline into the tunnel and she sprints to the other side and locks the door behind her. She announces loudly that she is back home, expecting her parents to be there. But they are nowhere to be found and they do not answer any of her attempted call phone calls. Wybie returns to retreive the doll that he gave her, saying that it belonged to his grandmother’s missing sister. Coraline is more than happy to get rid of it, but it has not disappeared completely. While she searches for it, she tries telling Wybie about the Other World. But he only thinks she is talking gibberish and even calls her crazy as she chases him out.
Coraline goes to Miss Spink and Forcible to ask if they had seen her parents, but they do not know. However, they are still able to help Coraline. Using century-old taffy, Miss Spink makes a triangular looking stone for her. Miss Spink tells her that it may help her keep an eye out for bad things, but Miss Forcible argues that it helps to find lost things. Despite their argument, both of their claims are correct. Coraline is able to use it to find the ghost eyes while being able to detect the potential threats guarding them.
That night, the cat returns and finds a doll that looks like Melinda and Charlie under the bed, revealing that the Other Mother kidnapped them and trapped them in a snow globe. She decides to gear up and go back to the Other World to rescue her parents and takes the looking stone with her. As she and the cat crawl through the tunnel, the cat tells Coraline to challenge her to a game. This way, Coraline can strategically beat the Other Mother.
The Other Mother is in the kitchen making breakfast for Coraline. Coraline takes the cat’s advice and asks the Other Mother if she wants to play a game, which immediately gets her full attention. Coraline makes a deal where if she wins and finds the ghost children’s eyes, then the Other Mother will let everybody go. But if the Other Mother wins, Coraline will stay and let the Other Mother sew buttons into her eyes. Before the game begins, the Other Mother gives Coraline a clue: “In each of the three wonders I have made for you, a ghost eye is lost in plain sight.” Coraline attempts to shake hands on the deal, but the Other Mother has already disappeared. This indicates that the Other Mother does not plan on letting Coraline go even if she does win.
The search for the ghost children’s eyes plays out like a video game. With each level she clears, she gains a ghost eye in the form on an obscure round object and the area turns into grey stone. As a timer, the Other Mother forms an eclipse over the full moon.
The first of the three wonders is the Other Father’s garden. Coraline uses the looking stone to find the first ghost eye, which is being held by the Other Father and his praying mantis machine. But the Other Father is apologizing while he attacks Coraline because the Other Mother is controlling him. In the end, he is defeated and gives Coraline the ghost eye before he perishes.
The second wonder is Miss Spink and Forcible’s theater. She uses a flashlight to see in the pitch black area and finds that the Scottish Terriers have turned into bats. The stage light shines on what appears to be a giant piece of wrapped candy. Using her looking stone, Coraline spots the second ghost eye wrapped in Miss Spink and Forcible’s hands. She reaches for it and their hands claps around her. They scream and shriek and beg her to give it back, but Coraline manages to wake up the Scottish Terrier bats and defeat Miss Spink and Forcible.
As she makes it to the third and final wonder, Coraline sees the Other Wybie’s clothes flying through the air, indicating that he wasted away to dust. Coraline finds the Other Bobinsky in his apartment. His body is gone, but his voice can still be heart and his clothes move around in a flimsy and rat-like way. Coraline spots the last ghost eye in his hat. The ghost eye is the ball that the jumping mouse was bouncing on during the circus performance. All the while, the Other Bobinsky is trying to convince Coraline to stay in the Other World, but not in a very convincing way. Rats emerge from the suit and push Coraline over the terace. She survives the fall, but loses the ghost eye and time is running out. She thinks she has lost hope, but the cat manages to catch the rat that had the eye. When Coraline takes the eye, the world around her begins to unravel. She and the cat run inside before they get caught up in the destruction.
Back at the house, the world that the Other mother created inside is falling apart and even glitching. The Other Mother herself has taken on her final form, which is much more spider like with sharp metal legs and hands and pale cracked skin. Coraline reveals the ghost eyes, but tells the Other Mother that she still needs to find her parents. She lies and tells the Other Mother that they are behind the portal door to distract her. As the Other Mother goes to open the door and call Coraline’s bluff, Coraline finds her parents in a snow globe and puts it in her bag. The Other Mother thinks she has one, but Coraline throws the cat at her and the cat claws out the Other Mother’s button eyes.
In her anger and distress, the living room unravels into a giant spider web. Since the other Mother can’t see anything, she does not know where Coraline is at first until her bag snags on the web, sending a vibration down to where the Other Mother can sense it. Coraline manages to climb up to the door and lock it, but the Other Mother bangs on the door, pushing it closer and closer to Coraline as she runs down the tunnel. All the while, she is shouting, “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! I’ll die without you!” This statement can mean one of two things: the Other Mother will literally die without Coraline because she planned to eat her or she will die of a broken heart because she wants something to love. But many signs point to her being hungry and desperate.
Coraline makes it to the other end in one piece and the snow globe is broken, indicating that she has her parents back. Her parents come back home covered in snow and, to their confusion, Coraline is glad to see them again. They do not seem to remember what happened and the snow on their clothes melts off before Coraline can point it out. They decide to go out to eat that night because their garden catalogue was a success. That night, Melinda and Charlie kiss Coraline good night and Melinda gifts Coraline the orange and green gloves she wanted. Once her parents leave, the cat shows up at Coraline’s window. He is understandably upset at her for throwing him at the Other Mother without warning, but is ultimately happy to see that she made it out alive. Coraline sets the ghost children free by putting the ghost eyes under her bed. It is unclear as to how she knows that this method will work.
In a dream, she sees the ghost children as golden angels. They thank her for setting them free, but warn her that the Other Mother will come looking for the key and she has to hide it. Coraline wakes up from her dream and decides that the best place to hide it is in the old well from the beginning of the film. Back at the portal to the other world, the Other Mother’s hand manages to get through to the real world and claws its way out in search of Coraline. Meanwhile, Coraline is nervously walking through the forest to the old well. Just when she thinks she is safe, the Other Mother’s hand catches up to her and snatches her by the necklace she is keeping the key on.
As Coraline struggles to get away, Wybie swoops in and takes a swing at the hand with a stick. The hand then attacks Wybie and tries knocking him down the well, but Coraline wraps it in her blanket. Wybie smashes it with a stone and the two throw the stone and the key into the well. Wybie apologizes to Coraline for not believing her in the beginning. He tells her that he changed his mind after seeing a picture of Mrs. Lovat’s sister and Mrs. Lovat’s story added up with Coraline’s story.
The film ends with Coraline and her family having a garden party with the neighbors. Bobinsky tells Coraline that the jumping mice are calling her a savior and that they will have a special performance for her when they are ready. Mrs. Lovat and Wybie arrive at the party and Coraline tells her that she has so much to tell her about everything she witnessed. In the distance, the cat watches the party before disappearing into one of the many hidden portals to the Other World. He can come and go without the Other Mother being a threat.
The Characters
Coraline Jones is the main character. She is a curious and energetic young girl who is unhappy with moving to a new town in Washington state away from her old home in Michigan. But her life is completely turned upside down when the Other Mother lures her in with everything she could ever ask for.
The Other Mother, or the Beldam, is the main antagonist. It is unclear as to where she came from, but she has a history of watching and studying lonely children before she kidnaps them and devours them. She takes on the form of the mother of the child she is after and her true physical form is ugly and spider-like.
She uses several manipulation tactics to lure and control Coraline. The first and most obvious is love bombing, where she fulfills all of Coraline’s desires and shows her the love that she does not always get from her parents. But when Coraline begins to retaliate, the Other Mother resorts to gaslighting and isolation and reveals her short temper. She even tells Coraline that she is “being difficult”. When Coraline is looking for her parents, the Other Mother tells her, “Perhaps they grew bored of you and ran away to France.”
Wybie Lovat is the only other kid living at the Pink Palace. He is not a character in the original Coraline novel. His grandmother, Mrs. Lovat, is the owner of the pink palace. He comes off as strange due to his hobbies and the fact that he had no other friends until Coraline came along. Given his awkward behavior, it is possible that he does not have friends outside of the Pink Palace either. But he and Coraline manage to form a close bond in the end.
Mr. Bobinksky, or The Amazing Bobinsky as he calls himself, is the eccentric Russian acrobat that lives just above Coraline. He keeps and trains jumping mice because he wants to form a circus. But it seems that he is somehow able to communicate to the jumping mice, as he relays a message from them warning Coraline about the portal to the Other World. It is unclear as to how he can talk to them.
Miss Spink and Forcible and Coraline’s superstitious downstairs neighbors. According to Neil Gaiman, the original writer of the Coraline novel, they are canonically a lesbian couple. Miss Spink is the most logical between the two and gives Coraline advice on potential danger and finding her missing parents. Miss Forcible is not always the most intelligent, as she focuses much more on her looks, but acts as Miss Spink’s assistant in their spiritual practices.
The cat has mysterious origins much like the Other Mother. Before Coraline came, he primarily stayed by Wybie’s side and brought him dead things in exchange for food. He has access to the Other World through small hidden portals despite the Other Mother’s attempt at keeping him out. He warns Coraline about the Other Mother’s intentions and helps her defeat the witch.
Melinda and Charlie Jones are Coraline’s parents. Throughout the film, they are constantly busy with writing their garden catalogue and are too busy to pay attention to their daughter. But they seem to have a change of heart when their catalogue becomes a success and they spend more time with Coraline.
The Other Father is a happier and younger replica of Charlie Jones. Even though he hardly looks like Charlie from the audience, Coraline is still able to recognize him as the other version of her father. The Other Father is one of the Other Mother’s many puppets, but he is the first one to try to warn and help Coraline in the Other World.
The Other Wybie is the quiet and seemingly cheerful replica of Wybie Lovat. When creating this puppet, the Other Mother made him to where he could not speak due to Coraline’s consistent annoyance with the real Wybie. But like the Other Father, the Other Wybie sees through the Other Mother’s tricks and wants to help Coraline escape.
The ghost children are the Other Mother’s previous victims before Coraline. Each child is from a different time period, indicating that the Other Mother had been kidnapping children for a very long time. One of the ghosts is Wybie’s great aunt who went missing many years ago. Coraline teams up with the ghost children to defeat the Other Mother and set their souls free.
Final Thoughts
Coraline is an easy 10/10 film for me. It is one of the many films that inspire me and many other creatives to chase after our dreams of writing and animating.
The story is complex and carefully laid out. Even though there are a few things that do not have an explanation, the film convinces you that some things just happen simply because they do. The cat even explains that the reason he can talk in the Other World is simply because he just can and leaves it at that.
The stop-motion animation is very fluid, almost to where you cannot tell that it is stop motion. Each character has their own unique facial expression and pose, giving them their own individual personalities through dialogue and body language.
After the screening, Laika featured never-before-seen footage of the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington, where costume designer Deborah Cook and special effects artists Jessica Lynn showed the materials used to make the clothes, wigs, and backgrounds along with the hundreds of facial expressions used for each shot.
The cherry on top of it all is the soundtrack. The film’s soundtrack gives a feeling of wonder, but also a sense of uneasiness as Coraline goes through her journey. The soundtrack features composer Bruno Coulais, the Children’s Choir of Nice, the Choir of the Hungarian National Radio, the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra Budapest, and composer Laurent Petitgirard.
If you are passionate about animation and storytelling, Coraline is a prime example of peak animated cinema.
What do you think of Coraline? Did you see it in theaters when it first came out? Are there other animated films you want me to review? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for reading!
