Arrietty (2010)

Studio Ghibli’s latest offering is another perfectly esoteric choice for the Japanese animation giants, an adaptation of Mary Norton’s the Borrowers, relocating the film but retaining much of its inherent conceits and characters whilst still allowing the studio’s prevalent themes to shine through. Miyazaki is only on script duty here, with former animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi in the directors chair, but Miyazaki’s fingerprints are all over the film from its environmentalist undercurrents to the small details that sell the world.

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Story-wise we follow Arrietty the only daughter of a family of Borrowers living in a remote house in the countryside (the location remains ambiguous) where a sick boy is recuperating along with his aunt and her housekeeper. As usual with Studio Ghibli films the plot is less important than the characters and the ways in which they interact and grow. They are able to say so much with the smallest of gesture or detail that the miniature world of Arrietty and her parents is immediately understood and accepted. When they step outside into the wider world the sense of scale and sound design in particular is wonderful, with every practical detail considered as to how they must navigate the familiar but suddenly hostile and vertigo-inducing environments.

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I have always appreciated how Miyazaki’s stories stray from the usual narrative conventions and this is true again here, later on a villain as such does appear (and played in a more threatening manner than often found in his films) but the threat never overwhelms the films themes and the poignant finale manages to be sweet without going where I expected it to.

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So whilst it may lack some of the more inventive and fantastical elements of the best Studio Ghibli work Arrietty remains a wonderfully animated and highly enjoyable film. It is rich with character and style, its world both gentle and reassuring, a reminder once again that each film from this wonderful studio is a real gift to be treasured.