Coraline and Showing Disconnect

In honor of Halloween this year, my friends and I watched the movie Coraline. Since I’ve been learning how to write middle grade, I was extremely interested in how they presented the relationship between Coraline and her parents.

One of the hallmarks of good middle grade fiction is when the disconnect between the adult and child perspectives is present, but the reader is able to understand and sympathize with both. A lot of writers would have taken a plot like Coraline and ignored her actual parents, focusing on her other parents. However, the producers of Coraline took great care to make sure the disconnect between Coraline and her real parents interacted with the storyline.

When the movie is taken from an entirely adult perspective, Coraline is needlessly annoying at the beginning when her parents are trying to focus and get things running smoothly again. But from Coraline’s perspective, her parents seem to care more about their work than about her at a time when she most needs their assurance.

The film shows Coraline’s internal struggle by establishing the old life Coraline is attempting to return to. In one of Coraline’s early interactions with her mom, she asks to go out and work in the garden. It is made clear that this is something Coraline is used to doing with her parents, and her request may be her attempt to get back to some form of normalcy.

Then the family is shown having a dinner of what seems to be leftovers thrown together. Honestly, I can’t blame Coraline; I wouldn’t have eaten her dad’s cooking either. But Coraline isn’t just grossed out by the dinner. She’s specifically disappointed that it isn’t her mom doing the cooking. Again, she is seeking normalcy but being greeted by strangeness.

Then, having presented Coraline’s side of things, the film makes a point to explore the parents’ struggles. Coraline’s parents are coming up on a deadline for the garden catalogue they’re working on, which any writer will tell you probably means they’re also running low on money as they wait for the paycheck to come in. What Coraline doesn’t realize is that the garden and good food all depend on her parents meeting their deadline.

However, Coraline’s internal struggle is never belittled. The movie never suggests that she is, “just too young to understand,” even if that’s what her parents seem to think. Her need for attention and assurance from her parents is a real need, and one that leads her to dangerous lengths to find something similar.

This allows the reader to sympathize with Coraline’s temptation to stay with the Beldam. At the same time, understanding her parents’ situation enables the viewer to root for Coraline to stay home despite the circumstances. In the end, hope returns, and Coraline learns not only to be grateful but to recognize that even after a long rain, flowers will bloom.