>>110937923For starters, she's very charming. Gaiman helped there, but the extra bitchiness she has in the movie is Selick's work, and that makes her more well rounded as a result.
She feels very authentic and you never get the impression that she's being forced into a likable position by the story; we have her shown at her best and at her worst. We get to see her happy and excited, but we also see her grumpy, sarcastic, even impish.
There's a great example in that scene when she turns off the power of the house. She's just had a bit of an argument with her dad, nothing major, and we've see him trying to get rid of her in the kindest way possible. And despite that, she freaks out when the power goes out just enough to tell us that she's not at all pleased to have done it, only to walk away pretending nothing happened, which, again, just sends us the message that just because she's not a bitch she's not an angel either.
The movie does a good job portraying her a someone who grumbles and is annoyed with her current situation without any reason not to show it, while still making it understandable.
I felt that the rest of characters Laika wrote are in a bad spot from the beginning and thus meant to elicit more sympathy, which is fine, but the way it is done in Coraline is just more subtle and makes it a harder sell. She's not an orphan who has to take care of her catatonic mother or an outcast the town doesn't like with a family who doesn't get her. Her situation isn't as extreme, and that works in her advantage.
And that's before everything goes to hell, but by that point I'm already sold on Coraline as one of my all time favorite characters, period.
