Reviewed by Leofwine_draca 7 / 10 Sweet, simple, and straightforwardĪ straight-up adaptation of Mary Norton's classic children's book THE BORROWERS, made by the superlative Japanese Studio Ghibli. The characters, especially Arietty, are likable and engaging, and the voice work is terrific, the standouts being Olivia Colman, Geraldine McEwan, Mark Strong and very talented child actress Saoirse Ronan. True, the ending is a little bittersweet, but considering the storytelling it worked I felt. The script amused and touched me, and the storytelling doesn't rely on wisecracks and action(not that it's a bad thing as such) but instead it is subtle and gentle with a lot of charm and heart, letting us bond emotionally with the characters and their world. As with all Studio Ghibli's work, the visuals are stunning, with the colours especially having such an ethereal quality to them, and the music has a pleasant Celtic lilt making the movie even more beautiful than it already is. Arietty is not one of Ghibli's best, but that doesn't stop it from being a truly charming film. In fact I haven't seen a Ghibli I dislike, even their weakest Tales from Earthsea while problematic is worth a viewing. Studio Ghibli have been responsible for some of my favourite animated movies, especially Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbour Totoro. Or the sound made by a straight pin (the clang of a sword) when it's drawn from the folds of Arrietty's tunic.Reviewed by TheLittleSongbird 9 / 10 A Studio Ghibli charmer. The filmmakers' approach is gentle and slightly humor-challenged, perhaps because they've invested so much imagination in capturing the world from brave little Arrietty's perspective - divining the texture of a raindrop, say (thick and viscous), when it's nearly the size of your fist and must pour from a dollhouse-sized teapot spout. The characters deal with friendship across cultural divides, the clever recycling of resources, frank talk of illness and the finality of death - and, when the Clock family realizes they need to move on, a shorthand look at the plight of refugees.Īll of this while clambering from nail to nail and down staple-staircases inside the walls of the house, rappelling off a kitchen counter, and careening through a garden where even a close-cropped lawn amounts to an obstacle course. While there's not much in the way of incident - just the cat, the crow, the housekeeper (voiced by Carol Burnett) and Shawn's illness - the animators slip quite a bit of socially conscious content into a narrative that's chiefly about the ingenious ways the Clock family gets around in what is for them a wildly oversized landscape. Shawn is lonely and wants to make friends, the elder Clocks are as terrified as their daughter is curious, and therein hangs the tale. A pea being enough to feed the whole family, they should be able to do this unnoticed, but when Arrietty drops a sugar cube, she's discovered. Shawn (voiced by David Henrie) spots the diminutive Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler) when she and her father (Will Arnett) are foraging for food. Miyazaki was only peripherally involved in Arrietty, but director Hiromasa Yonebayashi appears to be a devoted disciple, domesticating the master's teeming visual style somewhat but maintaining his emphasis on intricate graphics, strong independent female characters and stories rooted in real-world concerns.Īrrietty's story, taken from the first book in Mary Norton's children's series The Borrowers, centers on the tiny Clock family - 14-year-old Arrietty Clock and her parents - who live in the walls of a house where a boy with a heart condition is resting up for an operation. That's because Arrietty is the latest animated opus from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation house co-founded by the great auteur Hayao Miyazaki, director of such international animated smashes as the eco-friendly Princess Mononoke, the values-oriented Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, which preceded Pixar's Up with its manse-on-the-move storyline. Delicate, however, comes with the territory. In a hyperactive kid-flick universe populated by kickboxing pandas, rampaging chipmunks and tap-dancing penguins, The Secret World of Arrietty - the tale of a girl who's barely 4 inches tall and possesses neither superpowers nor a toymaker's imprimatur - is almost startlingly delicate and calm.Ĭalm, let's note, despite the presence of a marauding house cat, a raven who'd love to make a quick snack of our heroine, and a housekeeper determined to root out the little people who live beneath her floorboards.
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