In the beginning of this charming tale, Arriety, now turning 14, bravely ventures outside in daylight, returning with a huge bay leaf that her mother says will last a year. But she has also been seen by a boy, though he is around her own age. This will mean trouble, because the boy is a “being” while Arriety, living with her parents in a small corner of a basement, is a borrower. Borrowers, as introduced in the Mary Norton novel of the same name, are tiny people who subsist on what full-size people don’t need, or won’t miss. This is one of at least five adaptations of Norton’s novel, including a 2011 BBC version, but it’s the first to use another title and, perhaps surprisingly, the first to be animated. In this way, the story becomes as natural as a fantasy, one that is also a coming-of-age story, can be.
The look of the film should seem familiar to those familiar with the work of Hayao Miyazaki (Sprited Away, Ponyo), who adapted the novel but left the directing chores to Hiromasa Yonebayashi, one of his animators. It’s less frenzied and has few of the grotesque touches common to Miyazaki’s other work, but the colors are just as gorgeous, and there’s a warmth to it. (The dialogue of the adults, at least in the dubbed U.S. version, is similarly stilted at times.) Incidentally, while the larger humans appear to be Japanese, the borrowers do not. (Arriety’s dad, voiced by Will Arnett, seriously reminded me of a young Harrison Ford. Amy Poehler is the voice of her mom.) They are in a foreign land. Compared to mainstream American animation, this is not necessarily slower, but it’s much quieter, content to carry the story forward visually at times. The plot is simpler than other versions of the story; the tone is sincere, not comedic. (A mildly villainous human, voiced by Carol Burnett, does seem a little goofy, though.) Although it gently raises the subject of death, it should be enjoyable to beings of most ages.
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