Things Only Adults Notice In Coraline

Blue-haired Coraline — not Caroline — Jones (Dakota Fanning) is newly transplanted to Oregon from Michigan thanks to her parents' jobs as authors of gardening books, and she is really, really, really unhappy about it. As she explores her new home, a converted Victorian mansion called the Pink Palace that houses three different groups of tenants, Coraline finds a miniature door that opens up into a magical world that looks just like her own... only so much better. 

In Henry Selick's stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's children's book of the same name, there are lots of things that everyone can't help but notice in Coraline. For example, it's clear her parents are extremely neglectful of her; her mother Mel (Teri Hatcher), in particular, doesn't seem to like her daughter very much at all — and makes no secret of it, either. Everyone can see that Coraline feels out of place in her new town, especially since everyone keeps pronouncing her name wrong. It's obvious that Coraline and her family are in the middle of a stressful situation, and she doesn't always help make things better. 

But tucked away in the technicolor panels of Coraline and in the movie's snappy dialogue are many references that exist for the grown-ups watching along with their kids. Let's turn the button key and explore the things that only adults notice in Coraline.

Coraline is precocious and intelligent, an old soul who seems far more adult than her actual pre-teen age. Animation has made her three-dimensional in her physicality, and the story's writing has made her character multidimensional and complex as well. But one of the darker aspects of Coraline that adults in particular would pick up on is how she can be as actively mean as both of her mothers. 

Her Real Mother is extremely dismissive of her daughter and openly expresses how much of a nuisance she thinks Coraline is. In turn, Coraline is extremely dismissive and unnecessarily cruel to her new neighbor Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.). Wybie often has verbal diarrhea, it's true, but does that warrant Coraline calling him "Why-were-you-born," especially when she knows he's being raised by his grandmother?

Coraline also calls the Cat (Keith David) "wuss puss" on multiple occasions, but she actually apologizes for that once she realizes he can talk in the Other World. Adults will notice how the mild verbal abuse Coraline receives from her mother spills from Coraline onto others. It's another element that adds to the horror story reality of Coraline.

Coraline's Oregon setting is mentioned many times by multiple characters. But only an adult would notice the city name, Ashland, on the packages of cheese Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane) gets to help train his mouse circus. Ashland is home to a renowned Shakespeare festival every year, a festival that appears to be happening while Coraline takes place. We see signs for the festival in town, and to really bring the message home for the theatre-loving adults in the room, Coraline has a number of Shakespeare references sprinkled in its dialogue. 

"My kingdom for a horse," a kid shouts as he falls down the stairs of Linden's Department Store, a famous quote from Shakespeare's history-tragedy Richard III. The downstairs neighbors Miss Spinks (Jennifer Saunders) and Forcible (Dawn French) do a dance while reciting, "What a piece of work is man," an iconic monologue from Hamlet. And on the walls of Spinks and Forcible's apartment are posters for their old burlesque shows King Leer and Julius Sees Her. Only adults would notice that these titles sound like Shakespearean porn.

English-speaking adults should be familiar with the expression "gravy train," a term that Dictionary.com defines as "Experience excessive ease, success, or profit, especially undeservedly. ... The word gravy has long meant 'easy profits,' and the term is believed to come from 19th-century railroad slang, although the earliest recorded use dates from the early 1900s." People who find themselves in cushy gigs where they get paid a lot and have lots of benefit without doing much are said to be riding a gravy train. 

And in Coraline, when she has her first dinner with her Other Mother and Father, the Other Mother has the gravy bowl for mashed potatoes riding on an actual train. This is a clever visual metaphor that only older folks would be able to put into context: When Coraline goes to the Other World, she's getting everything she wants as easily as asking for it when in her Real World it's always a struggle. The initial charm of the Other World is exactly Coraline riding the gravy train until she finally realizes that the luxuries will require sewing over her eyes with buttons and allowing the Other Mother to eat her soul. There's nothing gravy about that. 

As Coraline explores her new house on the family's first rainy day in it, she counts windows, leaky radiators, and dead bugs she crushed with her own hands while making a note of all the observations. She begins unpacking her mother's snow globe collection and putting them up on the living room mantle, and notices a painting already hanging there. Coraline calls it a boring painting of a boring boy. He's wearing Victorian-era clothing and is upset because his ice cream fell out of its cone and onto the ground. 

Later, when Coraline discovers the Other World and its various parallels to her own, she finds that same painting. But in the Other World, the little boy is smiling, and his ice cream cone is perfect. In many ways these two paintings reflect Coraline's own feelings about where she is, at least at first. By the end, Coraline is indeed grateful to be back in the Real World even though it's far from perfect.

When Coraline realizes that she hasn't actually escaped the Other Mother's needle-finger clutches and that the Beldam has kidnapped her real parents, she goes to the other adults in the Pink Palace for help. Miss Spinks and Forcible at first are more annoyed that their ride to the theatre is missing than they are concerned that a little girl seems to have been abandoned by her parents, but eventually they do something actually useful. Miss Spinks uncovers a hag stone, or adder stone, from one of her vintage bowls of taffy, and Miss Forcible tells Coraline it's to help find lost things. 

Hag stones have a (sometimes naturally) occurring hole in them that is said to help give the bearer second sight when looking through, and in Coraline's case, it does. Adults, especially those who enjoy esoteric practices like crystals and empowered rocks, would know that these hag stones aren't just something that occurs in fairy tale horror stories like Coraline. In real life, these stones have been used in Druid, Celtic, and other nature-based religions for a variety of rituals and practices.

At first, the Other Mother is the absolute picture perfect version of her own mother that Coraline wanted (with the exception of her button eyes, that is). Other Mother dresses up and cooks beautiful, nutritious, and delicious meals for Coraline, not an offering of "How do you feel about a mustard, ketchup, salsa wrap for lunch?" like her Real Mother asks when she sees her fridge is empty and what's there is rotting. Other Mother's house doesn't have leaks or dim light or fading paint. 

But after Other Mother offers Coraline her own set of button eyes and invites her to stay with them forever and Coraline doesn't immediately accept, it's not long before Other Mother shows her true Beldam self. Her body elongates and takes on an arachnid-inspired form. At the same time all of her furniture is soon revealed to be insects and bugs. A cupboard becomes a cockroach, the chairs and couch become praying mantises and grasshoppers, beetles adorn the wallpaper, and Other Mother begins eating bugs instead of her elaborate dream meals. By the end the Other World is revealed to be an elaborate spiderweb woven by Other Mother. Chilling.

The tensions between mothers and daughters is obvious to everyone watching Coraline, but only adults will be able to properly relate with the complicated dynamics between Coraline and both of her mothers. About the Other Mother trying to trap Coraline, the Cat says, "Maybe she just wants something to eat." "That's ridiculous," Coraline replies. "Mothers don't eat their daughters." Older women in particular would beg to differ, since in fact there are quite a few mothers who happily devour their children, metaphorically speaking. 

Munchausen by proxy is a mental illness that predominantly affects mothers who seek attention through making their children sick. Recent examples have come in Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects book and television show, as well as the horrifying real-life story of Gypsy Rose and her mother that has also been put to screen. And while Other Mother clearly does want to feed off of Coraline's soul until she's dead, Coraline's real mother quite simply doesn't seem to like her daughter at all. Any small need of Coraline's is met with "stop pestering me" or a deep aggrieved sigh that makes Coraline feel unwanted in her own family. These disturbing moments really hit hard as an adult, much more than they do as a kid.