Review of the film The Secret World of Arrietty

            It takes so much to be brave in this world—to realize who and what is worth fighting for—especially when one is young. You haven't survived a lot yet. You aren't sure how to go about navigating those situations where courage is all you have. You're small and inexperienced and look to the adults for guidance.

            But what happens when the adults can't offer any guidance? What do you lay yourself on the line for? How do you do it? What if it's only you who is there to be brave and fight for what is truly important? How do you know what to do?

            The wonderful animated film The Secret World of Arrietty may not answer those questions for every child in this world, but it does answer them for its spunky 13-year-old heroine. Arrietty is a borrower; one of a dwindling race of tiny people who live in the shadowed folds and crevasses under our homes. As is their custom and need, they borrow small amounts of our goods, too little to even notice most of the time—a single tissue, a short piece of tape, a solitary sugar cube—to furnish their lives. They live quietly and happily just beneath the floorboards in homes that mirror our own in the most minute detail. These borrowers avoid us bigger humans, or “Beans,” at all costs for lack of trust for what we would do if we discovered their existence. What would happen to Arrietty and her sweet and nervous parents if someone did discover them...even if that person wanted nothing more than to befriend them? What if that person were a child, a lonely and sad child, inexperienced with secrets and caution and bravery?

            The story of the films winds through this premise beautifully and with a nuance that most animated movies lack. It's gorgeous to look at, luscious and so well crafted by the legendary Studio Ghibli that also turned out other cinematic wonders like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Arrietty and her parents, despite their obvious fictitious-animated nature, feel like real people with real desires and courage. Their story snares you with its adventurous and lived in feelings of true human behavior. And its story reflects something back at viewers that they may have glimpsed in themselves at moments throughout their lives.