Made by Studio Ghibli, the animation powerhouse that brought anime to the attention of not only mainstream audiences but the Academy Awards through the beautiful and Oscar-winning Spirited Away, Arrietty is the most soothing and lovely children’s film to be released in years. The directorial debut of animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi, this simple tale was supervised by Spirited Away’s writer and director, the esteemed Hayao Miyazaki. Throughout Yonebayashi manages to invoke the innocent, sentimental tone and gorgeous visuals of his mentor.
Based on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers, Saoirse Ronan voices Arrietty, a 14-year-old 10-centimetre tall Borrower who lives with her parents under the floorboards of a Japanese home. When a young boy Sho comes to the house to rest before he has a life-saving operation, he catches a glimpse of the tiny Arrietty and the two lonely characters form a secret friendship that borders on first love.
The animation is beautiful, the cartoon figures set against beautifully painted backgrounds of warm, subtle palettes and stunning details. But it’s not just pretty, it’s a brilliantly realised world that poses all sorts of treasures and threats for the young Borrower. Frequently highlighting Arrietty’s size by showing the Borrowers using bottle caps, safety pins and buttons as everyday tools, Yonebayashi also uses the deafening sounds of buzzing electrical wires, gurgling pipes, ticking clocks and creaking floorboards to further emphasise the vast landscape of enormous obstacles that the human world presents.
Occasionally Arrietty treads too softly, using a sweetly sentimental score when silence would have been more powerful, and a speech about how changing environments are threatening endangered species borders on Chicken Soup For The Eco-Conscious Child’s Soul. Overall. though, Arrietty is a charming tale about friendship suitable for all.
The IFI in Dublin will be showing Arrietty in its original Japanese with English subtitles, while Cineworld and Dundrum Cinema, also in Dublin, will be showing the reviewed, English language version.