Coraline

Coraline starts out with our main character in a new town. Her and her parents have moved into house and Coraline is bored, bored, bored. Here parents of course are workaholics and ignore her and are two busy for anything. In the exploration of her new house Coraline discovers a small mysterious door. At night this door leads Coraline to an alternate house that looks just like hers complete with "other" parents. This reminds me right away of an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Well everything is just dandy with the awesome Other Mother and Father. Coraline gets to do everything she likes and with a loving family. She goes back and forth between these worlds a few times even ignoring obvious warnings not to. Of course the Other Mother wants her to stay forever and that's when the fun and games ends and Coraline realizes she's in danger.

The climax is then really weak. Nothing really gets taken to a higher level and it seems the character is kept at the same emotional level. Then it just kinda wraps up nicely.

Also what's with the theme? Are we learning 'Be content with what you have even if it sucks'? Her parents didn't really change in the end. They were oblivious to the whole thing. It seems like life is just going to go on for Coraline the way it was. So the end was a little unsatisfying.

On the whole it was very Hansel and Gretel meets Alice in Wonderland meets Pan's Labyrinth.

<3justine