The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)

Produced by Studio Ghibli, this adorably animated world follows a tiny family living under the floorboards of a curious boy’s home

7.6

Movie

France, Japan
Japanese
Animation, Family, Fantasy
2010
HIROMASA YONEBAYASHI
Amy Poehler, Bridgit Mendler, Carol Burnett
94 min

TLDR

You can never go wrong with Studio Ghibli for a feel-good, family-friendly watch.

What it's about

Based on the English novel The Borrowers by Mary Norton, The Secret World of Arrietty follows a family of foragers residing under the floorboards of an old house. They’ve been living there peacefully for years, borrowing sugar cubes and thimbles when needed, but the presence of 12-year-old Sho threatens to change the order of things.

The take

Arrietty may not be as epic as other Ghibli movies, both in the literal and figurative sense, but its tiny world is so richly detailed that you could spend hours studying a single frame of the film. In Arrietty’s lovely house-underneath-a-house, stamps are hung on the walls like paintings, a flowerpot serves as the hearth, a tea canister is a cabinet, an olive a chair, a sewing pin a sword, a clothespin a hair tie, and so on. The possibilities are endless, but the film tries to exhaust them as much as it can. This alone makes Arrietty a delightful watch, but the simple story at the heart of it—one of survival, empathy, and faith—elevates into a timeless classic.

What stands out

Apart from the creative rendering of everyday objects, I also can’t stop thinking about the UK dub cast of this movie. A young Saoirse Ronan voices Arrietty, pre-Spiderman Tom Holland voices Sho, and Olivia Colman and Mark Strong play Arrietty’s parents. If you’re gonna watch the English dub, choose this over the American, trust me.

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