Arrietty

Overview

The latest Studio Ghibli film is being screened in both subtitled Japanese and dubbed English, but it doesn’t really matter which one you end up seeing. Any Ghibli venture is known primarily for the captivating animation that made the Japanese production house’s previous films Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle so enchanting to both adults and children alike. Arrietty is based on Mary Norton’s classic children’s novel The Borrowers and, though the film stays relatively true to the story, its dreamy mien is entirely Ghibli. Rather than being slapped in the face with 3D shticks the viewer is drawn into the secret world of Arrietty through painterly animation with a hint of hand-drawn nostalgia.

The 14-year-old, 10-centimeter-tall protagonist lives with her Mother and Father under the floorboards of a sprawling mansion set in a magical, overgrown garden. Their tiny home is filled with things “borrowed” from the humans who live above them, from Arrietty’s clothes peg hair clip to the sugar cube that leads to her being noticed for the second time by the human boy Sho. The subsequent relationship between the two characters leads audiences through a magical and moving exploration of concerns that are both fantastical (the kidnapping of Arrietty’s mother) and entirely human (Sho’s impending heart operation).

Debut Ghibli director Hiromasha Yonabayashi previously worked as an animator on Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, so he wasn’t entirely unprepared to fill the enormous shoes left by Hayao Miyazaki. Arrietty might not possess the sheer whimsicality of previous Ghibli endeavours — in fact a 10-centimeter-tall teenager actually seems believable compared to a hand-held fire demon or a faceless cloaked spirit — but it is the simple things like water droplets trickling off giant leaves, a flawlessly detailed dolls house and the relationship between Arrietty and Sho that will make all that inevitable gushing praise from loyal Ghibli fans entirely justified.