movie review - Coraline
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Toronto, 2011.02.07
This is a stop-motion animated movie done in a perfect style in which two realities are tenuously connected through various cat-flaps in an old house. In one reality (presumably ours) the heroine is a young girl with distracted parents who let her slide more or less headlong into a reality where buttons are sewn into ones eyes and everyone is a macabre version of their real selves. The plot revolves around the girl's struggles in both worlds, which dovetail more-or-less with her need for parenting.
It's beautifully made and the story rides a knife's edge between gripping and "too far" for almost the entirety of its run-time.
Recommended.