Neil Gaiman's novella, Coraline, was published in 2002 and has since become a classic. The journey taken by the young main character is one of the darkest stories told in a children's book. This made it the perfect source material for a Henry Selick film. Henry Selick's stop-motion films have transported, inspired, and haunted audiences for years, as viewers imagine his new film Wendell & Wild will too once it is released on October 28th. One of his most popular features is the last film he released, back in 2009. Coraline, well-known for its children's chorus score and fantastical imagery, not to mention the villains of the story with buttons for eyes, follows a young girl (Dakota Fanning) who moves into a new home with her mother (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman). While exploring, she finds a little door closed up by a wall of bricks. However, once night falls, Coraline finds the door is a portal into another world that is eerily similar to her own.

Neil Gaiman's story is a dark, cautionary fairy tale composed of a style reminiscent of a children's picture book. With his memorable stop-motion animation style, Selick takes the timeless folktale and makes an equally timeless film, while also deepening the world that Gaiman created with one unique detail at a time. From the new characters to the enhancement of Coraline's fantasy world, Selick takes the dark fairy tale and creates a more intricate story, while also maintaining the novella's horror aspect.

Coraline
Image via Focus Features

Selick's Film and Gaiman's Book Are Not Quite the Same

The main theme of both the film and the novella is the idea of the uncanny and the "other." The Other World in both mediums is just like Coraline's real world, and a few key things being only slightly off is enough to make viewers and readers understand that something is not quite right. In this case, everything is the same, except everyone has buttons for eyes. In many ways, Gaiman's novella and Selick's film are also very similar, but not quite the same. The door in the novella is regular-sized, not small, and instead of flats, viewers are gifted with the visually stunning Pink Palace.

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Selick Added New Characters

But one of the biggest differences is the addition of new characters. Absent from the book and created for Selick's film is Coraline's talkative neighbor Wybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.), whose grandmother (Carolyn Crawford) owns the building. Even further, Mrs. Lovat's twin sister mysteriously disappeared from the Pink Palace when they were children. This part of the story introduces the theme of sewing and introduces the film by showing the Other Mother turning the doll of the twin sister into a doll that looks like Coraline, perfectly setting the scene for the youthful yet frightening film.

Once Coraline finds the Other World, she also finds that the Other Mother has created an Other Wybie, with buttons for eyes and his mouth sewn shut. Adding these characters allow viewers to feel more connected to the story, especially when the film introduces the ghost of Mrs. Lovat's sister. It also opens up the audience's imagination, thinking about how Mrs. Lovat's sister entered the Other World many years ago and faced her own twin as an "other," also complete with buttons for eyes.

Other Mother in the kitchen in Coraline.

Selick Omitted Some of the Book's Darker Moments

The presence of Wybie, and the Other Wybie, gives Coraline a friend to experience the madness and uneasiness with. The story is expanded with new, more playful moments that readers will not find in the book, such as Wybie helping Coraline destroy the Other Mother's severed, autonomous hand at the end of the film. New protagonists, among other things, help level out the element of horror that, while very much present in the film, is the novella's entire foundation. One of the more fundamental scenes that is missing from the film is when Coraline finds a trapdoor in her house while in the Other World. This is also when Coraline confronts the Other Father, a moment which is replaced by a slightly lighter scene in the film, most likely because of how dark the novella is: "She was ready to turn and leave when she saw the foot sticking out from beneath the pile of curtains. She took a deep breath (the smell of sour wine and moldy bread filled her head) and she pulled away the damp cloth, to reveal something more or less the size and shape of a person."

While it is intriguing to think about how this scene would have played out in Selick's film, it was removed and replaced with other elements, such as musical numbers by Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French) and an entire circus routine by Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane) and his troupe of dancing mice. The film takes a short children's story and finds its aspects that deserve expansion, turning the cautionary folktale into something much bigger. Selick is therefore able to emphasize the childlike aspect of the story without minimizing the dread and unease that makes up Gaiman's novella.

coraline-pink-palace copy
Image Via Focus Features

Selick's technicolor "Other World"

In Selick's Other World, it is always dark and nighttime. And in contrast to the nighttime setting is the vibrant, technicolor fantasy world created specifically for the young heroine. Every part of the Other World catches the eye, making viewers unsure if the spectacular display of smoke and mirrors was made to emphasize the darkness, or if it is supposed to be the other way around. Illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi was the visual designer for Coraline and is behind the concept of the film's atmosphere, specifically the Pink Palace. His artwork portrays both the mundane and the fantasy worlds with retro inspiration and realism that is only a few steps away from surrealism.

In the story, this uncanny world was created by the Other Mother, also known as "the beldam." Selick adds to the Other Mother's imagery by painting her as a seamstress and metaphorical spider, with the Other World being her finely-crafted web. Given needles for fingers to go with her button eyes, the Other Mother is surrounded by insects stuck in her web as the illusion of the fantasy world fades and Coraline learns the truth. While the film does more for the Other Mother aspect of the character, Gaiman's folktale paints the elusive beldam, as well as her crafted world, as more open-ended and mysterious.

As Coraline is escaping back home in the novella, readers must use their imagination as to what the Other World and its portal really are. "The wall she was touching felt warm and yielding now, and, she realized, it felt as it were covered in a fine downy fur. It moved, as if it were taking a breath... Whatever that corridor was was older by far than the other mother. It was deep, and slow, and it knew that she was there..." Viewers learn more about the Other Mother's capabilities once the film finally gives into its surrealism, as she makes the living room floor collapse into a spiderweb, and she transforms into a spider.

coraline-other-mother
Image via Focus Features

The Movie Offers a Satisfactory Conclusion

Selick takes the mystery and gives a satisfactory final scene in which Coraline defeats the Other Mother, while never giving away where she came from, how old she was, or how long she had been taking children. Whether with visuals in the film or the blunt, childlike storytelling in the novella, both versions are able to achieve the perspective of a young kid. However, the film does satisfy the viewer's imagination while maintaining the mystery of a story akin to an urban legend.

Both the Movie and the Book Are Timeless

While Neil Gaiman's Coraline reads more like a brief fairytale and features an even darker tone than the one presented by Selick, the film takes advantage of this flexibility and creates an unsettling, cautionary epic about a girl who must go on a twisted journey in order to appreciate what she has. Every aspect of the film takes its already-terrifying source material and brings a more appealing world on the other side of the door to life, while also recognizing the intelligence of its younger viewers, Despite the differences between the two, and the apparent expansion that Selick's film introduces to viewers, both versions achieve timelessness and capture childhood imagination in a way that most books and films only attempt to do.

Henry Selick's new film Wendell & Wild is out on Netflix on October 28th.