Arri­et­ty

Based on Mary Norton’s fan­ta­sy nov­el series ​‘The Bor­row­ers’, Arri­et­ty is a Euro-flavoured tale that fol­lows a fam­i­ly of diminu­tive but indus­tri­ous for­agers liv­ing in appar­ent anonymi­ty in a sub­ur­ban Tokyo home. While her father braves con­tact with the Clock family’s inad­ver­tent land­lords in order to put crumbs on the table, Arri­et­ty (Saoirse Ronan) dreams of what the world might be like above the floor­boards. Being the feisty, wide-eyed lass that she is Arri­et­ty con­vinces her stereo­typed rents (solem but total­ly cool pop and excitable chore-hap­py mum) to let her head out on her first ​‘bor­row­ing’.

After blow­ing her cov­er on said sug­ar cube recon mis­sion, she’s giv­en a taste of life out­side her cosy shoe­box abode when Shō (Tom Hol­land), a well-man­nered boy who’s been sent to live with his great aunt to rest up ahead of a major oper­a­tion, extends a few neigh­bourly advances.

Despite its famil­iar tex­ture and tone, Arri­et­ty is some­thing of an anom­aly with­in the Ghi­b­li canon. With­out the hyper kineti­cism of Ponyo, the mys­tique of Spir­it­ed Away or the unadul­ter­at­ed whim­sy of My Neigh­bour Totoro, it is the most under­stat­ed, tan­gi­ble ode to the curios of youth to have been born on the studio’s ink-spat­tered desks in many years.

But while its aspect is more grown up than we’ve come to expect, in striv­ing to appeal to as broad a demo­graph­ic as pos­si­ble any hint of threat or con­flict has been removed. There’s no man ver­sus wild envi­ron­men­tal­ism, no hero’s plight against some all-con­sum­ing evil. Just a pure, won­der­ful­ly ani­mat­ed sto­ry of friend­ship against the odds told faith­ful­ly and tri­umphant­ly by Hayao Miyazaki’s pro­tégé Hiro­ma Yonebayashi, the youngest direc­tor to have grad­u­at­ed from Ghibli’s cell ani­ma­tion school.

It may only have a thim­ble-full of the charm of the very best Ghi­b­li offer­ings, but Arri­et­ty still puts every oth­er hasty sum­mer sequel and flashy 3D drib­ble in the shade.