Coraline: Book vs. Movie
Henry Selick’s Coraline (2009) is a stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novel. A hidden passage leads Coraline to an inviting version of her home whose comforts come with a dangerous condition.
From Books Adapted
What changed from the book
Coraline gets another child to talk to
The movie adapts Gaiman's whole book, but adds Wybie, a child Coraline can meet outside the Other World. Writer-director Henry Selick said he needed someone she could relate to in her ordinary life. The cat could not fill that role because it does not talk there.
The movie also makes her circumstances more specific. Selick placed the family in Oregon after a move from Michigan. He imagined Coraline losing the friends she had at home and needing more attention from parents absorbed in their work. That gives her everyday isolation a history the book does not spell out in the same way.
The Other World hides its danger for longer
The book makes the Other Mother unsettling from Coraline's first visit. Selick wanted the movie's Other World to be more inviting at the beginning, before its threats became clear.
He held back much of the initial menace while keeping the button eyes and occasional disturbing details. He also gave Coraline's ordinary world muted colors and less depth, then used greater depth in the Other World to draw viewers toward it with her. Those choices turn the book's temptation into a visible contrast between the two homes.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Neil Gaiman
- Year
- 2002
- Pages
- 208Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 3 hr 35 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Neil Gaiman
Exploring her family’s new flat, Coraline opens a door that should lead only to a brick wall and finds another home beyond it. The mother waiting there offers the attention and entertainment that Coraline misses, but expects something permanent in return. When her real parents disappear, Coraline must negotiate with this other mother and search a place whose rules belong to someone else.
- Director
- Henry Selick
- Writer
- Henry Selick
- Year
- 2009
- Runtime
- 1 hr 40 minWatch on Amazon
- Cast
- Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French
- Genre
- and Horror, Animation, Family, Fantasy
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
Bored after moving to the Pink Palace apartments, Coraline receives a doll from her neighbor Wybie and discovers a passage to a livelier version of her new home. There, an Other Mother serves wonderful meals and gives her undivided attention. Repeated visits reveal the price of staying, and Coraline has to draw on help from an unlikely companion to find her way back to the family she took for granted.
No comments yet. Vote, then say why.