for those in the know…

I went to see Coraline yesterday. It looked great, the story was intelligent, the models were wonderful, the detail in the animation was amazing, the 3D was effective, there was progression and development, the film was genuinely involving at times, I liked the lack of neat explanation at the end and yet… I don’t know why, but it failed to satisfy. Perhaps it was the weight of unfair expectation or perhaps I was distracted by thinking about how it was made, but I found myself resisting.

Maybe it was because the neighbours in the “real” world were too extreme. Maybe the cat was too unappealing (or, if it was meant to be unappealing or ambivalent, then there was no reason or point at which it chose to join with the girl). Maybe it was because there was something missing at the core – something to do with the price of staying with Coraline’s other mother and father.

I suspect that there was something significant that I missed about the grandmother introduced at the end. Perhaps understanding that would have helped. Was there any significance in the cat disappearing at the end? I googled the “For those in the know” phrase at the end of the closing credits, but the results were irrelevant.

Or perhaps I’m just over-analysing it.

Tags: coraline