The Secret World of Arrietty is a tale about courage, friendship, and trust. Inspired from The Borrowers this Studio Ghibili production is the best animated children’s movie that our family has watched in a very long time. One of the main characters in this movie is a fourteen-year-old girl named Arrietty who is a Borrower and lives with her mother and father in the floorboards beneath the house. In stark contrast to Arrietty’s tiny size, Shawn is a normal sized sickly youth who arrives at his aunt’s house to rest before undergoing a heart operation. With a surprising turn of events the borrower Arrietty and “bean” Shawn become unlikely friends. Their relationship is dangerous though because a Borrower should never be seen by a “bean.”
My girls and I watched a sneak preview of this movie over the weekend and the girls talked about the movie afterwards for the next hour. Seriously. They pink-puffy-heart-loved it! They were enthralled with a very tiny heroine who chose a red dress to wear on her Borrowing excursions. When the world was shown from Arrietty’s tiny viewpoint the girls couldn’t stop watching. The scale of this movie goes from the human “bean”-sized world to the tiny world of the Borrows. The detail in each world is breathtaking. Arrietty’s parents Pod and Homily transform many “borrowed” items to create a comfortable home. The sewing pin that Arrietty finds on her first excursion becomes a perfect sword. A small sugar cube seems like a giant when Arrietty picks it up. The perspective of the Borrowers make common household items like a kitchen table seem as large as the Statue of Liberty.
As an adult I have to admit that the level of detail in The Secret World of Arrietty is amazing and made me not want to take my eyes off the screen as well. From specks of dirt on the floor to peeling paint on the wall, there is no detail left untouched in this hand-drawn animation.
Here are a few interesting tidbits about the people who created this fantastic movie:
- Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most influential and admired filmmakers working in animation today and is a major figure in the Japanese cinematic landscape. His films have inspired moviegoers and colleagues around the world, from Pixar’s John Lasseter to fantasist Guillermo del Toro to Chinese director Tsui Hark, and consistently top the box office in his native Japan.
- Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a top animator at Studio Ghibli, was responsible for the animation in a signature scene in “Ponyo,” in which Ponyo runs atop ocean waves.
- English language voice talent director Gary Rydstrom is a seven-time Academy AwardÒ winning sound designer/mixer (“Terminator 2: Judgment Day”). He joined Pixar Animation Studios as an animation film director in 2003. His directorial debut for the studio was the Academy Award®-nominated short film “Lifted,” and he directed the short film “Hawaiian Vacation,” which was released with “Cars 2” in June 2011.
- Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall are highly successful producing partners whose films, separately and together, include “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “E.T.,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” the Indiana Jones films and the Jurassic Park films. In total, Kennedy and Marshall have earned 11 Oscar® nominations.
- English language screenplay writer Karey Kirkpatrick’s credits include “Spiderwick Chronicles” and “Over the Hedge,” which he also directed (with Tim Johnson).
The film hits theaters February 17, 2012. Here are a few coloring pages to print!
Disclaimer: I received complimentary tickets to see a sneak peek of this movie. All opinions are completely honest and my own.
Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 13 and 12, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more