Viewed in
2013
Formats
HDTV (dubbed)
Premise
Studio Ghibli's take on the children's book, The Borrowers, about tiny folk who live in your house and borrow discarded household items.
Liked
Visual magic, Hayao Miyazaki shout outs.
Disliked
Confusing third act, cheesy translated songs.
Thoughts
My favorite part was the world-building. Even though Hayao Miyazaki didn't direct, his influence was undeniable in the visuals. The attention to detail in Arrietty's rural universe was fully realized. And the movie didn't mind taking its time illustrating how the miniature characters moves through the crevices of the household, reminding me of the scale brought forth by Pixar's A Bug's Life. There was a cool moment of our hero's first time experiencing the vastness of the human house, using epic sound effects as a nice touch.
Written by Miyazaki and produced by his studio, it was no surprise that the animation was reminiscent of his works. But in a way, it felt like the movie makers were compelled to pay tribute to some of Miyazaki's iconic works. While watching, it was cool to see them mimic shots from My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke, but in hindsight, I kind of wished for more originality, instead of borrowing (pardon the pun) from previous films.
A bigger problem was the oddly-paced last act. It wasn't intentional, but there was an issue of false endings. The rescue scene was so emotionally gripping that I thought that was the climax, when in reality, it was merely the scene before it, leaving me confused in the last ten minutes. Also, while the house's owner wasn't a purely evil antagonist, her motives could've been executed better to make her more sympathetic.
Lastly, I made the slight mistake of watching the dubbed version. Like most Disney conversions, it was done pretty well. However, you lose the original voice over performances and inflections. I haven't seen the original version yet, but I'm almost certain that once again, they miscast Arrietty's father with too gruff and dour a voice. They did this in Ponyo, and the father's quirky humor was lost in translation. Also, the English-translated version songs always end up intolerably cheesy.
The Secret World of Arrietty never ran out of visual artistry and wonder, and Miyazaki fans will feel at home here. However, the story-telling flaws in the third act were an unfortunate distraction.
