The Secret World of Arrietty

My wife and I saw The Secret World of Arrietty this past Sunday after a relaxing visit with my mother.

If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the latest Studio Ghibli (of Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, and others) movie to see an

English translation and a US release. It’s based on a series of novels called The Borrowers by someone named Mary Norton. I’m fairly certain I’ve never heard of her or her books, but after seeing this movie I’m positive they’re wonderful. Despite my unfamiliarity with the original work, I wanted to see this movie because of the Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki pedigree (though he didn’t actually direct the movie, he did write and supervise its creation). I just know Ghibli knows how to bring the whimsy.

As was the case with Ponyo, my wife and I were the only adults in the theater without children hanging from our hips, hogging all of our popcorn and soda, but that’s okay. I like to think it just means we’re staying youthful.

The story is about a 14 year old ‘borrower’ named Arrietty, who is pretty much exactly like a normal human besides being only 4 inches tall. She lives with her 4 inch tall parents (or perhaps she is 3.7 inches tall with a 4.0 inch dad and 3.9 inch mother?) in a cozy little box under a house populated by human-sized humans. Borrowers survive by ‘borrowing’ items from regular-sized humans (typically things that are lost or forgotten, or something that we have an abundance of and would not miss, like sugar cubes). Their rules are simply to take only what they need and never, under any circumstances, be seen by a human bean (a borrower’s way of saying ‘human being’).

As you might expect, Arrietty is spotted by one of the human beans, and much hilarity and adventure ensues.

While sitting in the theater I was wondering whether the kids around me were enjoying the film as much as I was. The pace is slow at times, far slower than other Ghibli stories, many of the scenes were dialog-heavy and action-lite, and there were no jokes about bodily functions or any slapstick in sight. Arrietty takes a more thoughtful, delicate approach to conveying its story. It really was interesting to see the tempo-shift that happened after a trailer for an upcoming Madagascar movie ended and this began, so I wonder which type of movie is preferable to the younger audience (though I’d wager it’s not Arrietty).

I just couldn’t get enough of the beautiful art and the wonderful ways the borrowers were shown to live (like using a pin as a sword, or a pair of earrings as a curtain-climbing tool). It made me want to fall into the screen and just live life as a borrower.

I don’t want to spoil too much, nor could it be very interesting to read someone gushing over a movie constantly. I will just recommend you go see the movie yourself, and allow yourself to be drawn into the world that is so much like ours you might be seduced into believing there are real borrowers living in houses ‘borrowing’ things right under our noses all the time.

I sure hope there are.