This's how you adapt a book

Coraline is not a huge book. It's a darkly entertaining children's book by Neil Gaiman, and it has at its heart a very simple story: bored girl finds secret door to other world...other world seems cooler...other world turns out to be scary.

Atop this simple skeleton, the director or the movie Coraline - the same director who brought us The Nightmare Before Christmas a decade and a half ago - has crafted a gorgeous and not entirely faithful adaption of Gaiman's tale. I say not entirely faithful because the film adds in a new character to allow Coraline's book narration to have an audience in the film, and the film brings closer the two dramatic moments near the end of the book - tightening up the declining/rising-again action that Gaiman included in the book. In this case, the tighter story actually works in favor of the film, more closely matching the typical plot graph of a Hollywood film.

With the story tightened up, Selick is free to focus upon the craft of the film, producing a stunning achievement in stop-motion animation, a gorgeous film shot in breathtaking 3d and one that should be seen in its true 3d to be truly appreciated. The figures have taken another great leap forward in expressiveness as the titular character's facial features are as emotional as any human actress could be, her parents conveying the tedium that few live actors could ever put forth.

And Selick's transformation of Gaiman's world onto the screen makes for a gorgeous palette from which the "other world's" beauty is impressively seductive, allowing us to believe that Coraline might just choose to stay there were it not for the frightening notes behind the scenes. The feeling of excitement in the other world is marvelously conveyed - from the Other Father's lone musical number (from They Might be Giants) to his garden, the basement ladies' performance to Mr B's circus - but the soundlessly sour notes coming from the Other Wybie's muted friendship show just how horrible would be Coraline's dreams coming true at the expense of her reality.

The film is gorgeous...frightening (its G rating should more realistically be a G-10 as the smallest children would likely be too frightened by the terrors from which Coraline has to defend her world)...and emotionally resonant.

This is a film that betters its source material.

Take that, Zach Snyder.