The Secret World of Arrietty gets Glorified!

Shawn (voiced by David Henrie) is a young man waiting for a new heart, he is sent to his grandfather’s house under the care of his aunt and her housekeeper Hara (voiced by Carol Burnett), and while he is dealing with the anxiety of his mortality, his parents are facing a divorce, so his mother sends him away so that he can rest while she is away on business (are the tears welling up, yet?). Arriving at his new destined location, Shawn catches a glimpse of a young Borrower frolicking in the vast landscape that is yard, but because of Arrietty’s size, is her world.  Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler) has become of age to fulfill her initiation of the next level of her life.

She is ready to become a borrower, and the first step in her rite of passage is to borrow some sugar and a tissue. On her first night of her scavenging adventure, Arrietty is accompanied by her father Pod (voiced by Will Arnett).  Pod leads Arrietty through a myriad of labyrinths from the foundation of the house to the kitchen. During the Borrower’s excursion up to Shawn’s bedroom for the tissue, Shawn is wide-eyed and spots Arrietty as she and her father work the tissue from out of the box.

Freezing in shock, Arrietty drops the sugar as she and her father calmly creep back towards their esoteric passages and arrive back home somewhat empty handed. The discovery forces Pod to convince his family of relocation because no one must know that they exist. Hara (the antagonist) discovers the Borrowers’ whereabouts under the house and she manages to capture Arrietty’s mother, Homily (voiced by Amy Poehler). Hara places Homily in a jar, and calls an exterminator to get rid of the thieving pests. Shawn and Arrietty rescue Homily, and he assists them to escape to find Spiller. I feel that I have said too much already, but I have relinquished the details to a minimum. This film should be experienced in the theater. Disney’s greatest business move was the purchase of Studio Ghibli. I give the narrative an A- and the art as well as the art direction an A++. This film is an instant family classic.

Studio Ghibli does it again! In a modern industry filled with the technological, MoCap (motion capture), CGI (computer graphics imaging), and etc…it is really refreshing to take a step back and take in the wonderful craft of hand drawn animation cells. The artistic rendering of the gauche painted backgrounds are simply fantastic and brilliant. The vivid colors and vast landscapes give rise to a visual illusion of depth of field and perspective. The bright colors enrich and further the wonderful experience that is The Secret World of Arrietty.  This epic narrative of fantasy does a great job to manipulate its audience into a myriad of shots where the artist plays with the scale of certain sequences, for example, the scene where Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler) is being attacked by the crow, and the crow’s size even matches the scale of Shawn (voiced by David Henrie), and yes, I agree that the scene is important as it pertains to the dangers of the real world, but the exaggeration of size adds to the fantasy.

The narrative follows a linear pattern with light expositions, but the structure is not a predictable formulaic three act journey. This animation is a well thought-out product and not some typical popcorn family roundup, and with that being said, one can enjoy the three dimensional dynamic characters with their distinguishable quirks and mannerisms.

The sound design plays an integral function as well as to show the audience that the protagonists are larger than their actual height. For example, during the sequence when Arrietty’s rite of passage as a borrower, Arrietty finds a pin under an antique hutch, and when she sheathes the pin into her scarlet dress the sound is that of a blade being sheathed.  The voice acting of Will Arnett as Pod (Arrietty’s Father) definitely played against his typical over-the-top cynical roles, but rather, a heartwarming everyday down-to-earth father keeping his family’s head above water as they borrow household goods to survive.

I highly recommend this gem because of its beautifully crafted animation and escapist fantasy. Give this flick a chance; you and your family will not regret it. The only drawback that I have with this fantasy, is that, I had to return to the reality of high gas prices, bombastic media partisan rhetoric, impatient customers, inconsiderate, ill-mannered cell phone users, and day-to-day struggles (yes, I am old).I hope you enjoy this review as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to catch you at the cinema.  

Please let me know what you think if you have seen it? How did you feel about the rich hand drawn animation? What did you feel the film lacked or was it overexposed? Did you like the theme or did you find it too ambiguous? The film is an adaptation of The "Borrowers" by Mary Norton . The screenplay was scripted by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The Secret World of Arrietty (2010): released here in the U.S.A. February 17, 2012.