The Secret World of Arrietty delivers almost everything audiences have come to expect from Japan’s famed Studio Ghibli; a heart-warming coming-of-age tale with gorgeous animation and a superb score…yet it lacks that certain quality so unique to Ghibli films: the inimitable and imaginative storyline.
The Studio, founded in 1985 by legendary animation director Hayao Miyazaki, has produced classics like Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Princess Mononke (1997), and the Academy-Award winning Spirited Away (2001). Miyazaki’s unique and wildly creative works have redefined not only how audiences view Japanese Anime, but traditional animation as a whole. Since Disney began distributing their films around the world, people have had high expectations when sitting down to watch a Ghibli movie (especially on this side of the Pacific Ocean). The biggest criticism that can be made about most post-Spirited Away Ghibli films is that they’re just pretty good, and unfortunately, The Secret World of Arrietty (originally released in Japan in 2010) falls into this category.
Based on the English novel, “the Borrowers” by Mary Norton, the film tells the story of a young girl named Arrietty who lives under the floorboards of a country home with her equally tiny mother and father. They refer to themselves as “Borrowers”, as they “borrow” from the big people, but only enough so as to go unnoticed…or so they think. One day, a sickly boy named Shawn is sent to live at the cottage with his Aunt. When he attempts to befriend Arrietty, her world is quickly turned upside-down, and her family and way of life threatened.
In his directorial debut, Hiromasa Yonebayashi creates a world where the most minute and seemingly insignificant items are re-imagined for the miniature world. Pin needles become swords, bugs become predators, and drops of water are huge and sluggish. Yonebayashi, a protégé of Miyazaki’s, has clearly learned well from the master. The look of this picture is undeniably that of a Miyazaki film, but Arrietty somehow feels a little underwhelming.
The most likely culprit is the story itself, which isn’t to say it’s bad. The continued popularity of the book coupled with the fact that it’s been adapted several times over the last twenty years (as a BBC mini-series in 1992 and a live action film starring John Goodman in 1997), says a lot about the timelessness Mary Norton’s novel. It just lacks the extravagance, imagination and the off-the-wall, bizarre characters associated with Miyazaki films.
If one is able to look at it on it’s own, separate from the films that came before, Arrietty will please. It shows what the simplicity of traditional animation can accomplish in a world becoming increasingly cluttered with offensively bright and obnoxious 3D, computer animated films. Fans of classical animation likely won’t be disappointed upon leaving the theater. If they can distance themselves from the names involved and the expectations associated with them, they’re in for a treat…though that may be easier said than done, especially when the film is preceded by that huge Studio Ghibli logo.
