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.
