Review of The Secret World of Arrietty

Arrietty may be Ghibli’s most England-coded effort to date. It is (like Howl’s Moving Castle) based on a series of English children’s novels (in this case The Borrowers). Say what you want about the British, they're good at writing quaint little tales, and on the plot front, that’s what Arrietty is. We follow a sickly boy (Shou) who’s sent to his grandmother's house to relax before heart surgery. This borrows somewhat from the original novels, but changes the setting from mid-century England to current(ish) Japan (in the process sanitizing the narrative of colonialism). A family of borrowers also lives in the house, the youngest of whomis Arrietty. On top of that there’s a maid (Haru) who serves as a sort of casual antagonist.

The plot is low-stakes, and focuses mostly on fleshing out the world. That’s where the film really succeeds.

What makes this film is the atmosphere, the environment — the vibes. The film takes place in an old house (like, early Twentieth Century style), and Ghibli’s portrayal of it is perfect. Nowadays you might call the aesthetic this film embodies “cottagecore”, though it’s possible I’m misapplying that (I’m not familiar with the minutiae of Tumblr aesthetic definitions).

The building seems to exist in harmony with nature; ivy grows up the walls and roof, grass pokes out from between the bricks of the back patio, flower fields surround it. It’s typically Ghibli-picturesque, and (to me at least) evokes a beautiful sense of nostalgia.

The world of the borrowers, hidden behind the walls and beneath the floorboards, is just as detailed. Every aspect of it is rendered with loads of thought. Just examining the different ways things are fastened together reveals this, from the tiny button on Arrietty’s bag, to the velcro on her father’s, to the sticky pads he uses to climb flat surfaces. Even the physics are altered — water beads up at their size, and doesn’t soak into clothing as easily. Obviously it’s not completely scientifically accurate, but was crafted with clear consideration and intent.

So too detailed is the miniature infrastructure they use to travel around the house. They walk along nails hammered into wooden beams, climb up staples, use hidden entrances to sneak in and out of the walls. One of the most impressive examples is an intricate rope elevator, which is rendered with incredible mechanical detail, the type of thing only Ghibli is capable of.

This creates a feeling of lived-inness; clearly many generations of borrowers have lived in this house, each contributing to and relying on these structures. How might they have collected these nails? How recent an invention is the elevator? It conjures up ideas reaching much further than what we see on screen. It's environmental storytelling, to borrow a phrase from video game criticism.

This approach extends to the tiny ecosystem the borrowers live in. Bugs seem completely different from their perspective; grasshoppers are about their size, while sugar ants appear more like rats, and pill bugs like cats. Mice are comparable to bears, while racoons and cats hardly have any comparison. Maybe elephants, or Pleistocene megafauna.

Regular interactions with human sized bugs sounds horrifying, but the borrowers seem unbothered by it. That makes sense, they live in a completely different ecosystem, their fears and cultural associations would be completely different. Grasshoppers are more like deer than bugs, a target for hunting rather than pest.

Given these different cultures, I questioned why borrowers speak the same language as humans (who they rarely interact with). It seems the filmmakers also thought of this, as, when we meet a borrower who doesn’t live in a human house, he doesn’t speak their language well. He also seems to finger count using a different base numbering system. Perhaps the house borrowers picked up on the humans’ language, while outside borrowers retained their original language.

All of this, the cultural, ecological, architectural, and aesthetic detail adds up to one of Ghibli’s best realized worlds. We only get to see so many interactions in a ninety minute runtime, but the film creates the distinct feeling that what it shows us is just the tip of an iceberg. At about ninety minutes, it establishes all of this with dizzying efficiency.

Thematically, it’s not too deep or shallow. While this wasn’t directed by either of Ghibli’s big names, Miyazaki is credited for the script (along with Keiko Niwa), and it plays with one of his typical themes — environmentalism.

One conversation between Shou and Arrietty demonstrates this, as they discuss borrowers in an ecological context — as a species headed for extinction. Their numbers appear to be dwindling, as they’re continuously killed off and forced away from their habitat. Shou suggests they’re doomed, like the many other species humanity has destroyed. Arrietty doesn’t accept this, saying they’ll find a way to live independent from humans.

Miyazaki exploits this premise to create a conversation between man and a species we’ve forced near extinction. On top of that, the scene serves a more basic function. Both Arrietty and Shou are uncertain about their futures (Shou due to his surgery, Arrietty due to potentially being forced from her home). Shou’s view of the borrowers’ future is a reflection of his dark outlook on his own future. Arrietty’s hope in spite of this inspires hope in Shou. In turn, Shou helps Arrietty materially.

This scene serves dual roles, exploring deep ecological themes and advancing the basic conflict of the story. Deep political themes on top of basic messaging. Miyazaki is doing Miyazaki things.

I won’t belabor this obvious point, but Ghibli’s animation is great here. All of what they do, from fabric animation, to character animation, to mechanical animation, is unparalleled in anime. They’re the only studio capable of this. They also nail the foley work, providing the world an additional layer of texture. The editing and direction are just as great, there’s hardly a wasted shot across the entire runtime. I struggle to even find nitpicks, there’s nothing about this film I’m confident would be better off different.

I should, at the end here, provide a little context for my score. Some people view scoring as accounting for pros and cons. A work that only fills the pros column is a ten, and a work that only fills the cons column is a one (or zero). That framework has a fatal flaw, and films like Arrietty expose it.

The project of Arrietty is not significant enough to reach that ten out of ten level, even with flawless execution. Executed without flaw, Arrietty is a good movie. It doesn’t have the capacity to produce incredible emotional highs, or incredible insight into the human condition or whatever.

I can’t point out any flaws in this film, and the output of that flawless execution is a good movie. A quaint story with interesting themes, good characters, and great production. I wouldn’t argue with anyone ranking this higher in Ghibli’s catalog, though it is a seven for me.

This is one of the most widely appealing and accessible Ghibli films, and I’d recommend it to most everyone.