Jul 19, 2015
My impressions on Arrietty
The level of detail in this incredible hand drawn animation is breath-taking, and can only be attributed to the studio that's worthy of its name. By now we are probably all familiar with the surreal magic Studio Ghibli casts on their art, the settings and environments are so vibrant and well... indescribable. But our high expectations of Ghibli's work does not dampen our amazement every time we begin one of their films, this time I was completely blown away by how much creativity was poured into the daily functions of the 'Borrowers', how and what they use to operate, what they call
...
their humble abode, we see unparalleled amounts of resourcefulness.
Watching this movie was like being zapped with a shrink ray until you are nothing but a few inches tall, and then being thrown into somebody's home that's not actually too far away from your own. What we discard as unused little objects, items with as much value as one cube of sugar or a single sheet of napkin, the 'Borrowers' risk their lives in the form of adventure to procure.
The plot and characters of the film loosely relates to the novel 'The Borrowers' by Mary Norton, however Sho/Shawn's character (David Henrie) was given a complete overhaul, while Arrietty (Bridget Mendler) showed some areas of consistency with her book-ly counterpart.
Let's talk about Arrietty's parents for a minute, their characters are quite fundamental in striking realism into the film. While Arrietty seems like the curious, adventure driven girl and Sho being the soft spoken, kind boy that he is, the majority of the audience (children, but not subject to) look for elements of themselves in our two main characters. But the deal breaker that really makes the film speak to us is the portrayal of Homily (Amy Poehler) and Pod (Will Arnett), Homily being the over worrying mother and Pod the stoic but protective father involves us into a situation where we honestly relate to the entirely different yet, at the same time unusually familiar world of 'Borrowers'.
Like many Ghibli films, the protagonist embarks on a journey experiencing new things, but ends up learning the most about themselves through self discovery (Spirited Away and Howl's come to mind). The actual plot of Arrietty in terms of a 'sequence of events', seem like the happenings of everyday life, quite mundane and nothing spectacular IF you were a typical human being. However, we are not given the perspective of a typical human being, we've been minimized to pocket size and that's the beauty of it, suddenly birds become the size of dragons, and your local pest control can be something straight out of a nightmare.
Sho/Shawn's character seemed to contain a lot more potential than was presented, and personally I was somewhat puzzled that nothing else was made of him after the ending. That beautiful doll house did seem like the perfect end game for Arrietty's family but would have made the film too predictable. A bittersweet farewell between our main characters was the ending that evokes more thought as well as sadness and not just for the children of the audience.
I would be lying if I said that I wasn't slightly disappointed, my interest was piqued but before I was prescribed enough information about Arrietty, about the 'Borrowers' and about Sho, the movie had abruptly finished. The entire movie was an ordeal that ended just as mysteriously as it began, where did the 'Borrowers' come from? Where did Arrietty and her family go? What happens to Sho?
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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