Rated 7+ IMDb · 70%+ RT Little-known finds Curated by humans
Rated 7+ IMDb · 70%+ RT Little-known finds Curated by humans
ICYMI
2010 Movie
Dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi · France, Japan · Japanese
Produced by Studio Ghibli, this adorably animated world follows a tiny family living under the floorboards of a curious boy’s home
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.
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.
"A pure, wonderfully animated story of friendship against the odds told faithfully and triumphantly by Hayao Miyazaki's protégé Yonebayashi Hiroma, the youngest director to have graduated from Ghibli's cell animation school."
— Adam Woodward
"Old-school, mostly in a good way."
— Leslie Felperin
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.
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.
You can never go wrong with Studio Ghibli for a feel-good, family-friendly watch.
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Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.
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