"Tim Burtons' Corpse Bride" is a film that may well suffer from heightened expectations, given the place that "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" has in popular culture and the long period we had to wait for a second hauntingly animated film done with similarly distinctive characters. But this 2005 film, which has just been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award in time for its DVD release, has its own charm and will win its own cadre of devotees that will want a figure of the lovely Corpse Bride on their nightstand. After all, there is something poignant in the question: can a heart still break once it has stopped beating?

Directed by both Burton and Mike Johnson (who animated "James and the Giant Peach"), this is the story of the unlikely love triangle in which Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp) finds himself involved. A marriage has been arranged between Victor and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson). His parents, who sell fish, want the prestige of being associated with the Everglots, while her parents, who are secretly broke, want the neuvo riche money of the Van Dorts. The prospect of marrying a woman he has just met is rather daunting to Victor and after botching the rehearsal he goes off into the woods to practice his vows, which is how he comes to accidentally marry the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter). She brings Victor home to meet her friends and he ends up taking her to the land of the living to meet his parents. He tries to explain that he never wanted to marry a corpse (who does?), but his character is such that he does not want to hurt her with the truth and he is touched by her wedding gift and the fact she had a real name (Emily) and a tragic story (apparently murdered by her fiancée for the family jewels).

There are additional complications in that Victor still has feeling for Victoria, whose parents quickly find another groom, Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant), as news spreads that Victor has eloped with a charming corpse. If Victoria is going to get married, then perhaps Victor should make sure he and Emily get a proper wedding as well ("Dearly beloved and departed," intones the skeleton presiding over the ceremony). Meanwhile, Burton and Johnson are filling the frame with macabre character details in the tradition of wall-to-wall visual delights within the frame that is the hallmark of contemporary animation, whether it is computer generated, stop motion, or the truly old school method of painting images on cels.

If "The Nightmare Before Christmas" took great pleasure in having the creatures of Halloween take over the symbols of Yuletide, then "Corpse Bride" is content to turn the worlds of the living and the dead upside down. The living are done in the washed out browns of a daguerreotype while the dead are shown in brighter colors favoring a blue palette. For the most part the living are dreary, hateful, and ultimately boring people, while the dead all seem to be jumping around a lot more than they probably did when they were alive. Their songs are perkier too (i.e., "Remains of the Day"), or at least more revealing (i.e., "Tears to Shed"), than those sung by the living (i.e., "According to Plan"). Plus, I like any fight scene where I can yell, "Look out! He has a fork!"

I ended up rounding up on "Corpse Bride" for several reasons. First, the title character has a compelling beauty with her large eyes and lovely blue skin, especially as she glides around in her billowing wedding dress. Second, I just like this style of animation, pretty much regardless of what is happening in the story but especially since it always strikes me as being in the spirit of Chas. Addams (Morticia and Emily have to be related on some level, right?). Third, given that both Emily and Victoria are sympathetic characters, I could not see how "Corpse Bridge" was going to come up with anything approaching an actual happy ending, so I was pleasantly surprised (even though Johnson and Burton foreshadow Emily's fate before the movie's title pops up on the screen). There is also the nice touch when the film underscores the fact that social class distinctions do not matter when you are dead, even if you are not gone.

"Die, die, we all pass away
But don't wear a frown
Because it's really okay
You might try and hide
And you might try to pray
But we all end up
The remains of the day"

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