The Secret World of Arrietty: Review By harveycritic

THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY

Walt Disney Pictures

Reviewed for MovieWeb by Harvey Karten

Grade: B+

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi, English version by Gary Rydstrom

Screenwriter: Hayao Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa, English version by Karey Kirkpatrick from Mary Norton's "The Borrowers"

Cast: Voices of Bridgit Mendler, Amy Poehler, David Henrie, Moises Arias, Will Arnett, Carol Burnett

Screened at: Park Avenue, NYC, 2/9/12

Opens: February 17, 2012

A delightful book,"The Borrowers" by Mary Norton published in 1953, is now a lavish movie with Japanese style animation splashed with the colors of the rainbow. "The Borrowers," which posits that tiny people live hidden form humankind beneath the floors of a quiet country house in England, gets a Japanese production which, for the benefit of Westerners has been translated into English by Gary Rydstrom. A few changes have taken place: we do not see some of the loot "borrowed" from "human beans" such as postage stamps for paintings and matchboxes for storage; or a small pair of Turkish bloomers made from two glove fingers for what Mary Norton states are for "knocking about in the mornings." Nor does the boy that comes to live in the country house have a pet ferret.

The big fear of the tiny people, is that one of them, the cute title character Arrietty, had allowed herself to be seen by the 14-year-old boy: first by accident when bounding about in the garden, then by the lonely lad's coaxing her as she stands outside his bedroom window.

The story centers on a tiny family living under the floorboards of the home for years, taking things that they say the humans will not miss such as a single cube of sugar or a piece of cheese--just enough to survive. They're a nomadic group, forced to change locations whenever spotted by the enemy (that's us). Arrietty changes her mind about at least one human being when the boy and she become friends. At the risk of scaring some of the small fry in the audience, the G-rated movie contains dialogue such as "we all have to die some time" and the fact that the boy has something wrong with his heart and will go into surgery in a week. (Why is that dialogue necessary?)

Using Studio Ghibli technology emanating from Koganei, Tokyo, whose work "Spirited Away" is best known in the U.S., we see such delights as Arrietty's mother pouring a single drop of tea in a tiny teacup--which is later used to transport the family across the water to a new home. For self-defense, Arrietty carries what to us looks like a simple pin but in her sheath it is a fearsome sword--which she can use against grasshoppers who tower above her in height.

Arrietty's mother is an overprotective nag who regularly fears for her daughter's safety, while the human housekeeper takes on the role of the evil woman who at one point captures Arreitty's mom and places her in a jar to prove to the family that she was right all along about the existence of the little ones.

The designers do well in creating characters to scale: the borrowers look convincingly shorter than the human family, but both groups are given interesting, though literal dialogue. There are no Shrek-style wisecracks or words put in for the benefit of the old timers in the audience.

Bridgit Mendler takes on the role of Arrietty's voice while other characters are given human dimensions by Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett, Will Arnett, David Henrie, and Moises Arias.

Rated G. 94 minutes (c) 2012 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online