Coraline

 

23 February 2025

 

Dear Watchers,

 

Imagine a separate dimension where everything boring came to life, the only catch is, they take away your soul. 11 year old Coraline Jones just moved to Ashland, Oregon where she stays at the Pink Palace Apartments, a quaint, peaceful building. Coraline’s parents are always very busy and never have time for her. They think that she is just a distraction and nothing more. Coraline is saddened by the thought that her parents don’t care about her and despite her best efforts, she never even gets a smile out of them. Coraline befriends this loud kid named Wybie who is the grandson of the owner of the apartments. Coraline spends a lot of time with Wybie since he’s the only company she has.

Boredom leads Coraline to discover a hidden locked door in the apartment. She finds the key in the house, opens the door, and finds a tunnel that seemed to stretch throughout the world. She crawls through the peculiar tunnel and discovers “the other world”. “The other world” closely mirrors her own but is better in some ways. Coraline meets her other parents, who exactly resemble her usual parents, except.. They have black, shiny buttons for eyes. Nevertheless, She is ecstatic that her “other” parents in the separate dimension care about her and are willing to do fun things with her.

All of this seems like a dream come true until…she is given an option to stay in their dreamland forever, the only catch, that she’d have to allow buttons sewn into her eyes. Suddenly Coraline notices that this other world is an illusion to keep her trapped forever. The other mother wants to keep her there so that she can sustain herself by stealing her life force by sewing buttons into her eyes. The other mother goes through a drastic change, one second she looks like Coraline's mother, the next, she looks like a human with a porcelain cracked face mixed with a spider wearing a wedding dress.

 

Coraline goes back to the real world, happy that she’ll never have to go into the other world again, that is until her parents go missing, Coraline realizes that her parents have been kidnapped by the other mother to lure Coraline back into ‘the other world’. 

Coraline makes a deal with the other mother, -if she can find the other victims eyes and her parents in time then the other mother will let them go- but if she doesn't then she would let the other mother sew buttons on her eyes, trapping her forever.  

Coraline successfully outsmarts the other mother and escapes to the real world, taking the key, and locking the portal between the real world and “the other world”. Still not ready to accept defeat, the other mother’s hand crawls through the portal and tries to retrieve the key. Coraline sees the hand come through and hits the hand with a rock. She crushes the hand, and ties the key to it, and then throws it down the wishing well, sealing the other world forever. Coraline starts appreciating and accepting her life.

 

The theme of Coraline is bravery, the importance of home, and appreciating what you have. At the beginning, Coraline struggles with this since her parents barely notice her and her friend, Wybie. But at the end she finally accepts them for who they are and appreciates them. Coraline shows surprising bravery for rescuing her parents and the victims from the other mother, “When you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave”

 

This thriller, dark, horror, fantasy movie is not recommended to anyone under 11. When I watched this a couple years ago, it gave me nightmares for two weeks straight. This movie has way too much violence. Why is this considered a children’s movie?

 

Have you ever had that time where you wanted a completely different world where everything would be exciting and go according to plan? Even when another world seems perfect, although the grass is always greener on the other side it's important to value what you have even if it's not perfect. Coraline teaches us to be brave, appreciate what you have and the importance of home.

Keep Watching,

 

Natalie O’Brien