No matter how long you’ve considered somewhere your home, there are always going to be areas that you take for granted. Spaces in the walls, between floorboards, behind the stove, maybe a forgotten crawl space or two... But there’s a good chance these areas are not only seeing constant use, but by more than just rats and spiders. They call themselves the Borrowers... Tiny people, no bigger than your average action figure, living in hiding and building their lives out of the random knick-knacks that you thought you misplaced. They mean you no harm, and have no actual ill intentions towards you, but if you wake up at the right moment, you just might catch a glimpse of them taking a tissue from your bedside. This is what fourteen year old Arrietty was doing, on her first ever borrowing expedition with her father, when a lonely young boy spots her and tries to make contact. Drawn together as two lonely souls often will be, Arrietty and Shon begin a tenuous exchange that gradually brings misfortune upon misfortune to their tiny doorstep. Can Arrietty overcome the single minded curiosity of Shon’s aunt to protect her family, or will the three of them be forced to leave their home behind before it’s too late?

The very fact that this is a Studio Ghibli movie should tell you all you need to know about the quality of the animation. The budget was obviously generous as always, and every second of animation is absolutely perfect, even if there isn’t as much to animate here as there would be in the studio’s more popular titles. This is a fairly uneventful movie, with more stealth than action, a lot of dialogue, and barely any flying scenes(which is anathema to a Ghibli film) so it’s not the most visually stunning film in their catalogue, but it is still impressive to go through an anime film actively looking for cost cutting techniques and cut corners, and finding diddly squat for your efforts. Rather, The Secret World of Arrietty is more known for its visual design than for its animation. The character designs are among Ghibli’s more realistic, revolving around anatomically believable characters with only slightly cartoonish faces that are perfectly capable of expressing a wide range of emotions without ever slipping into the range of moe.

What’s more impressive by far, however, is the environmental design. We follow the Borrowers through their trials and tribulations from a fairly unique perspective, travelling through the neglected nooks and crannies of the house, and while it is pretty convenient how so much of it is set up just right so the cast can traverse it... Steps in just the right places, nails sticking out just the right distance apart, etc. none of it ever feels unbelievable, and I never once found myself questioning the dimensions of the house. Their living space is full of repurposed small items, and while it’s absolutely unnecessary to do so, it’s still entirely rewarding to pause here and there and see just how much attention to detail went into this setting. From framed pictures of stamps, to a leaky pipe giving them their water, to the fact that the liquid in Homily’s teapot has to bubble a bit before it pours, as liquid on such a small scale wouldn’t just flow like if it were in a life sized appliance. There are a few unexplained contrivances, but you’d have to go out of your way to look for them, and even then I didn’t totally mind. This is fantasy, after all, everything can’t be totally realistic.

What grabbed me even more than the visual design, however, was the sound design. As you would imagine, everything is larger from the perspective of a lilliputian, and that includes what we would consider your average, everyday noises. When we’re following the borrowers around, every single sound, no matter how mundane, is amplified tenfold. Everything from the rustle of grass, to the squeaking of a window hinge, to the monstrous echo of water dripping in a sink, forms a very unique ambiance that serves as half of the soundtrack of the movie. As for the other half, the musical score was composed by UK singer Cecile Corbel, a French artist by birth, whose body of work encompasses the entire western European region and has a strong Celtic vibe to it. As a lifelong Studio Ghibli fan, she sent the studio her second album in 2009, and a producer was so enchanted by it that he hired her to compose the score. You could make an argument for her hiring feeling a tad random, as she basically just got put to work on the movie they were making at the time, but whether by accident or design, her sound fits the film beautifully, playing into its folksy aesthetic in a way that only Celtic music can.

Speaking of Celtic, there are two English dubs for this movie, and the one we got isn’t even the more English of the two. This isn’t the first Ghibli movie to have two dubs, but rather than being dubbed by two separate studios like a few of the other titles, Arrietty has one dub for America, and one dub for the UK, and because I was looking for an excuse to watch the movie twice, I saw both tracks all the way through. Starting with the adaptive script, the American dub took a lot of liberties with the translation, but with very little exception, it didn’t change anything too radically, and it seemed to be moistly focused on giving the characters more personality and charm. The UK dub sticks far closer to the script, changing only what was needed to match the lip flaps, although if I’m being honest, they didn’t do a GREAT job of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we’re in Kids on the Slope territory or anything, but you do notice it a few times. Anyway, the UK dub is a bit blunter with its wording, and a little harsher in some scenes, especially where it involves Arrietty’s father Pod and Shon, the human boy she encounters.

Arrietty herself is performed fantastically in both tracks. She’s played in the American version by Bridgit Mendler, an up and coming Disney star at the time, but one that I’ had never heard of until now, and one who apparently hasn’t acted since 2018. In the UK version, she’s played by the much more well known Irish-born actor Saoirse Ronan. Between the two of them, I’d say Ronan has more raw strength in the emotional scenes, while Mendler is more likeable and charming in the light-hearted scenes, but you can’t go wrong with either of them. For Shon, his performance by David Henrie is one of the biggest complaints people have, and while he does sound way too old... He was in his early twenties, after all... I do think his voice carried a lot of the pain and weariness of someone who’s had to face his own mortality far too early. The UK version is played by Tom Holland, the future Spiderman, and he sounds way more true to the character’s age, but also a bit more believably childish... A little more immature, and a little less self aware, which fits some of his actions in the film better.

Arrietty’s father Pod is played in the American dub by Will Arnett, and while he does sound a little like Bojack Horseman in a couple of scenes(or at least Bojack’s father Butterscotch, ironically) it’s not too distracting. He actually has a lot more warmth and understanding in his delivery, showing Arrietty the dangers of exploring while still acknowledging that we learn by making mistakes, and even when she messes up, he’s more focused on fixing the problem than scolding her for it. In the UK dub, Mark Strong is a lot colder, which is appropriate given the amount of shit he’s seen, and can come off as harsher on her for her actions at some points. The only character who I have an objective favorite for is the mother, Homily, and while I’m not saying Amy Poehler’s performance is bad, it can be a little screechy and incomprehensible at times, and the script was rewritten in ways that make her come off as a bit daft and air-headed, and I don’t think that’s Poehler’s fault, but I had a far easier time enjoying Olivia Colman’s performance in the UK dub. I will also say that while this movie does take place in an older section of Tokyo, the aesthetic still has a rustic and folksy quality that feels a little more organic with a mix of Irish and English accents. Then again the American dub has Carol Burnett in it, so you know what? Both dubs are amazing, you can’t go wrong with either one.

The Secret World of Arrietty is based on a long running children’s book franchise called The Borrowers, which I’m going to admit right now, I’m not very familiar with. I never read the books, and I know I saw the 1997 American movie at some point, but I don’t remember almost anything from it, aside from some wacky hijinks and the basic concept of what a Borrower IS. A Borrower is a tiny human that builds their lives off of small items they take that they know you won’t miss, which... As I was aware even back then... Is not borrowing. They don’t return anything to you, which makes it more like self-justified theft, but that’s not the anime’s fault, so I’ll let it slide. The only piece of Borrowers media I’m intimately familiar with is the film I’m reviewing today, and I have to say, it’s kind of surreal to see Studio Ghibli directly adapting such an immediately identifiable western property. Yeah, Miyazaki was involved with some western adaptations, but not with Ghibli. Yeah, he did make Ponyo with Ghibli, but that was an extremely loose adaptation, and it honestly had more in common story-wise with Lilo and Stitch than The Little Mermaid. Arrietty is a very direct adaptation, to the point that it largely covers the first book in the Borrowers series, with some changes made to condense the story and fit a more Japanese style setting.

Yet, as surreal as this all may sound, Arrietty has an unfortunate reputation of being one of the lesser Studio Ghibli films, and I’ve seen a lot of people call it slow and boring, which I kind of get, but which I also kind of don’t get. On the one hand, Miyazaki was not the director of this film, and it kinda shows. Arrietty was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, whose body of work I can’t really comment on because I haven’t seen either of his other directorial efforts. I do know that Miyazaki wrote the screenplay, but despite the fact that he'd been fighting to get the film green-lit for decades, you can kind of tell that he wasn’t that interested in directing the project himself from the start because it’s devoid of the kind of excess and visual spectacle that he’d usually employ. I think the reason Miyazaki handed this project to one of the studio’s less experienced directors is because he’s never been much of a story guy, and likes to write his movies as he goes, focusing more on emotion and visual magic than plot and a strong narrative. That’s not to say you can’t go weird with an adaptation, I mean just look at the American Borrowers movie. They basically threw out the source material, fabricated a more American friendly greedy corporate villain and let loose with weird ideas and hijinks, going balls-to-the-wall with the concept. Miyazaki could have at least thrown in a scene where Arrietty has to fly a toy plane or something, right?

But the movie did wind up in Yonebayashi’s hands, and to his credit, he rose to the occasion, coming up with storyboards that impressed even Miyazaki himself. The result, however, could easily be described as an anti-Miyazaki Ghibli film, as it’s the exact opposite of what Miyazaki would usually do. Arrietty is a really subdued and grounded film, choosing to focus more on story and plot than action and thrills, and while I do get why some viewers might find the result really slow and boring, I have never felt that way while watching it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just weird(I mean that is definitely true) but while some people say this ninety minute movie felt like over two hours, it feels more like one hour to me, and I had an absolute blast with it. I can kind of tell which parts people find boring... There are these long, wistful shots of Shon lying in a field of flowers, but for me, the beautiful music they play over these shots more than justifies them. There are lots of scenes where the Clock family... Yes, that is Arrietty’s last name, and I'm kinda surprised it wasn't translated as Kuroku for the film... Are traversing the environment, but I love the atmosphere in these scenes, and with everything I said about the sound design earlier, I always feel too immersed to be bored.

Of course, that’ not to say this movie doesn’t have some flaws, and as much as I enjoy it, I can think of at least one pretty big one; I never found this movie to be boring or slow, but if I could put a label on it’s biggest issues, it’s that it feels unfinished, and I mean that in two ways. First of all, there are several plot points that are set up early on and then never really pay off. That’s not to say they don’t serve any narrative purpose, but it does feel to me like they might have done some rewrites in the middle of production to make the film feel less frightening to a younger audience. For a couple of examples, Arrietty performs her first borrowing picking up a lost needle and treating it like a sword. Problem is, she never actually uses it. Another example, we’re warned of the danger of animals like rats and toads, but those never come back either, despite a crow getting the narrative treatment that they should have had. They’re clearly shown to live near an ant colony, how is that not a concern? There’s even one moment towards the end where, I’m not going to tell you what happens, but I found myself going “Yeah, no, my cat would fuck you up without hesitation, tear you apart and eat at least half of you.” There is a substantial feeling of suspense and danger in some sequences, and I do thoroughly appreciate that, but they just leave so many potentially exciting ideas on the table.

There’s also the fact that this movie doesn’t really have an ending, and I don’t just mean the conclusion was unsatisfying, I mean it kind of ends, abruptly, with the end credits coming down right at the moment where you’d expect to see some kind of really powerful epilogue. And then it just ends, and I do get that the way they took things is fairly faithful to the books, but it still feels kind of disappointing. Still, what we do get, I do really like. It’s a pretty small movie in the grand scheme of things, I found myself resonating with both Shon and Arrietty, both of whom are lonely and isolated youths for very different reasons, and each of whom have an entirely unique and interesting perspective on the world around them. It’s a cute, charming story that doesn’t have a whole lot of meat on its bones, but it also doesn’t try to pretend to be more than it is, and it offers you an experience that you can lose yourself in if you choose to, alongside a cast of likeable characters... Even the eventual antagonist, who’s surprisingly funny and has some pretty understandable motives... who you’ll have no problem rooting for and getting attached to, even if it does lead to a kind of ‘read the novels’ type of ending. It has its flaws, but I still recommend checking it out.

The Secret World of Arrietty is currently available in several different formats from Gkids. The original novels by Mary Norton are still in print, and while copies of the 1997 Hollywood adaptation are easy to find online, I don’t know how you’d go about finding the various British adaptations, so good luck with that. I should also mention that Bridgit Mendler put out a tie-in music video called Summertime, but it’s kinda terrible, especially compared to the songs Cecile Corbel wrote for the movie.

To this day, The Secret World of Arrietty is the highest grossing Studio Ghibli movie to receive an American theatrical release, even succeeding beyond Spirited Away and Ponyo in that regard, and while it’s possible that could be attributed to it’s roots as the adaptation of a beloved childrens book series, it’s still really weird to know that it’s become one of the more forgettable Ghibli films. I would honestly consider it to be one of their most under-rated titles, and while I know I’ve said that before about Only Yesterday, at least that movie has managed to build up a decently sized cult following, while Arrietty hasn’t been able to do the same. It’s not a particularly deep or exciting movie, and it doesn’t have the most dire stakes, but I think there’s more than enough to enjoy about it, and what it does have, it does really well. It’s a really fun, emotionally satisfying movie that’s full of charm and likeable characters, creative set pieces and immersive atmosphere, and at least by my standards, just enough adventure and peril to keep it from getting boring. I really like this movie, and I can’t guarantee you’ll feel the same way, but it’s worth seeing at least once.

I give The Secret World of Arrietty a 7/10.