The story of a young girl who discovers another world behind a hidden door in her new home, Coraline is kind of like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe without the Lion. Replacing Coraline's inattentive parents and disappointing surroundings with a world and people focused completely on her, the other world is like a creepier, magical re-envisioning of Home Alone. With a seemly perfect "other mother" who eventually reveals herself to be a soul-sucking witch, its story is also quite reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel. And let's just say, were Coraline live-action instead of stop-motion animation, its dark storyline and quirky humor would definitely have pushed the limits of its PG rating.

When Coraline begins, Coraline and her family have just moved into the Pink Palace Apartments situated on a seemingly solitary plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Deprived of her friends and barely paid any attention as her parents work to finish up their latest book project, Coraline sulks around her new home in protest. While she doesn't actually say it, it is as if her mind whispers its silent wish to be anywhere but there and to have any other parents but hers. But as Coraline's tagline has been warning eager fans for months, you must always be careful what you wish for.

Cue the beginning of Coraline's nightly visits to her "other mother," her "other father," and her other life on the other side a small door in the wall of the family den. Following a particularly unappetizing dinner and climbing out of her own depressingly drab bed, Coraline crawls through a magical tunnel to discover a mother preparing the equivalent of a Thanksgiving feast, a father ready with a serenade just for her, and a bedroom fit for a princess. Upon return visits to the other world punctuated by the disappointing reality of her actual parents and home, she tours a garden that spells out her name, attends a mouse circus, and participates in an acrobatic theater spectacle put on for her and her alone. In her other world even her annoying neighbor friend Wybie (short for Wyborn) is mute, her tragically failing want-to-be ringmaster neighbor a success, and her almost disgustingly beyond-their-prime actress neighbors once again young and beautiful.

But as the saying goes, some things are just too good to be true. In an ultimatum that is still creepy in stop-motion animation, Coraline's "other mother" tells her that to stay in her other world Coraline must exchange her eyes for buttons. (Just think about that with real people and tell me it doesn't make you want to vomit.) Much like the White Witch who lures Edmund with candies, compliments, and promises of power only to imprison him as yet another source of her own growing power, Coraline's other mother's gifts and promises soon reveal themselves to be less about Coraline and much more about her. And when Coraline finally begins to smell that something isn't quite right and fights to return to her real life, she quickly discovers that the other world is only alive because of the life it has stolen from the real one. Dealing with the possibility of other realities than this one we are standing in right now, acknowledging the soul as the ultimate vessel of life, and daring us all to examine the people, things, and realities that may very well steal our souls from us before we even realize they have, Coraline is actually a very spiritual film. Contrasting Coraline's seemingly perfect "other world" with her flawed but real one, it challenges us to question the value of the very realities many of us give so much of ourselves and our lives to. Revealing Coraline's "other mother's" seemingly loving and generous gifts and promises to actually be selfish and destructive and Coraline's mother's more realistic and sparing expressions of care and attention to be genuinely loving, the story gives a slight nod to the value of a God who does not always say yes and a world that does not always fulfill our every desire. And revealing not only the scary lengths to which selfish and evil forces may go to steal our lives from us but also the concept that our souls cannot be taken from us without our consent, the story realistically reminds us that while the battle for our souls is a serious business, there is still hope.

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