Reviewing The Secret World of Arrietty

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

"Barrowng," he said after a while.  "Is that what you call it?"

"What else could you call it?" asked Arrietty.

"I'd call it stealing."

Arrietty laughed.  She really laughed.  "But we are Borrowers," she explained, "like you're a--a human bean or whatever it's called.  We're part of the house.  You might as well say that the fire grate steals the coal from the coal scuttle."

~The Borrowers by Mary Norton

In preparation for "The Secret World of Arrietty," a Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki film, I quickly read Mary Norton's 1952's book The Borrowers to see how the two compare.  Typically I don't like doing this, knowing full well that liberties must be taken for a books plot to work well on the screen.  There are several movies I'm glad I read the book after, such as Ella Enchanted (loved the movie, but if I had read the book first, I would have hated it.  Now I can see the two as separate entities).

And I'm glad I read Diana Wynne Jones Howl's Moving Castle after watching Miyazaki's adaptation.  Great liberties were taken there, and one of my favorite scenes in the book, where Howl takes Sophie and Michael to Wales, our World, never made the movie.  Actually, the fact that Howl is from our world, wrote a doctoral thesis and played rugby at University never made it either.  Kinda inconsequential information, but interesting and thoroughly amusing just the same.

The Borrowers was charming, and how did Miyazaki translate it to animation?  I feel he actually improved upon the written word into an enchanting film.  There are some changes, but I rather prefer them.  In the beginning of the movie Arrietty is allowed a bit of freedom outside the house, which she never has in the book.  And the cat, there is no cat in the book, dangerous creatures they are, but in the film one of the main characters is a cat, who has an important rule to play in the plot, but not what you would think.  And the path the borrowers must take to get into the main house is a visual splendor of climbing, walking on nails, and flying up with the aid of pulleys; in the book the path they took was simple and uneventful. 

The animation, as always, is gorgeous.  I love the attention to detail Studio Ghibli pays to background art.  And even though there isn't magic, which is a trait typically found in their films, you can't help but still feel the magic in the story telling and visuals.  Cecile Corbel, a French musician, did the music for the film.  Though the movie takes the story to Japan, away from the original England, the musical score has a celtic feel that is quite fitting.

I would put "The Secret World of Arrietty" in the same camp as Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Whisper of the Heart," which are actually two of my favorite movies from him, and I'm sure Arrietty will quickly become my absolute favorite.  It's hard to choose with so many great Studio Ghibli films.

Now I just need to see the movie in the original Japanese, which I'm looking forward to.

Have a great day!
Sarah