![]() The film only goes for an hour and a half, so if at all possible get your kids to wait. When's a good time to run to the bathroom? Just masterfully done, in all respects.ħ. And I loved that the animators really thought about the science of things, so that the liquids – from the tea in Homily's teapot to the tears Arrietty cries when her mother is captured – form huge (to the Borrowers) drops due to surface tension, just as they would in reality ( see Kathy Ceceri's article on that subject). Notice how, when the Borrowers venture out into the larger world, perspective is used to make you feel like you're there with them, and particularly how the sounds change, so that the normal house noises we're all used to seem so much larger all of a sudden. The house itself, the furniture and the various items around the house were all clearly carefully chosen and drawn – I've seen the movie twice, and I saw lots of things the second time that I'd missed the first. Pay close attention to all the scenes in the Borrowers' house. This is certainly a good film for little details, considering the subject matter. Studio Ghibli films are always full of little details. And while seeing The Secret World of Arrietty twice is certainly no chore, I think it lacks the re-viewability of, say, My Neighbor Totoro.ĥ. It won't stay with you the way Spirited Away does – although comparing other films to that masterpiece seems somewhat unfair, like comparing almost any non-Shakespearean play to King Lear. I will say that, while I really enjoyed the movie, it didn't blow me away. You'll see parts that will remind you of Ponyo or My Neighbor Totoro, but you'll also see bits that will seem entirely new, and to my mind that makes the experience all the better, in a way. The task of doing this in The Secret World of Arrietty is doubly difficult, because it's a new world, but it's also the "real" world from a very different perspective. Certainly there are few animators who are better able than Miyazaki to put the audience in a new, amazing world and let them experience the wonder of it without pushing it in your face, and in this Yonebayashi does just as good a job as his mentor. Miyazaki wrote the screenplay and produced the film, so his distinctive style, if not always obvious, isn't missing, either. Well, first off, it's important to note that legendary animator/director Hayao Miyazaki did not direct this film, but his protégé Hiromasa Yonebayashi did. Is this similar to previous Studio Ghibli films I've seen? Too much younger and they may be scared by Hara's attempts to capture and/or kill the Borrowers.Ĥ. I'd say the film is good for most kids age 6 and older, and probably quite a few slightly younger ones as well. The story is fairly simple, there is some suspense and a possibly scary bit when Arrietty's mother Homily is captured by Hara, but there are also many funny scenes (some including a cat), and the movie wraps up in an hour and a half. And few kids will fail to be awed by the richness of the film's visuals, which are always interesting and occasionally breathtaking. We also would all like to think that we'd react as Shawn does when confronted with tiny people who live under the floorboards of our house, even if any sensible person would in reality take pictures of them and contact the National Academy of Sciences or some such organization. It's easy to identify with Arrietty, who's smart and daring, and who loves her parents (who are the only other Borrowers in her world) more than anything. Saying much more than that would spoil the movie, but suffice to say it's a very good movie for kids, which should give you an idea how it ends. Fortunately, Shawn only wants to help the Borrower family, but the same can't be said of the housemaid Hara, who wants nothing more than to capture them to prove that she wasn't crazy when she claimed to have seen them some time before. As the movie opens, a sick boy named Shawn comes to stay at the house to rest before surgery, and it isn't long before Arrietty, on her first "borrowing" with her father Pod, is seen by Shawn. They live underneath the floorboards of a house, venturing out to "borrow" what they need and trying to avoid being seen by the "beans" (normal-size humans). It's a terrific story, loosely based on Mary Norton's classic novel The Borrowers, about a 14-year-old girl named Arrietty and her parents, who are Borrowers and thus only inches tall. This is a sweet, beautiful and sometimes funny movie, so if that's what you go in expecting I promise you'll be richly rewarded. Yes, if you go in knowing what to expect.
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