Arrietty | Little White Lies

Arri­et­ty

28 Jul 2011 / Released: 29 Jul 2011

Cartoon character in a red dress amongst lush green leaves with water droplets.
Cartoon character in a red dress amongst lush green leaves with water droplets.
3

Anticipation.

Will Ghibli’s latest suffer without the magic of Miyazaki?

4

Enjoyment.

Not an inch. Arrietty is a soft and sunny anime treat.

3

In Retrospect.

An assured if sanitised debut effort from an emerging voice.

A pure, won­der­ful­ly ani­mat­ed sto­ry of friend­ship against the odds from an emerg­ing ani­mé voice.

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.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.