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Arrietty
- Critic rating
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Currently
4/5 Stars.
Movies.ie Critic Review
Moving in with his great aunt Sadako (Takeshita) in her rambling old house in the country, young boy Sho (Kamiki) is due for an operation that will hopefully save his life. Late one night, when Arriety (Shida) joins her father, Pod (Miura), in venturing out from beneath the floorboards on a mission to ‘borrow’ a cube of sugar and some tissue paper, the miniature teenage girl comes face to face with the napping Sho. Who tells her not to be afraid. But Borrowers – 10 centimetres-high inhabitants of a house’s nooks and crannies – aren’t supposed to mix with humans, and Arriety’s family are soon making plans to move on…
THE VERDICT: Based on Mary Norton’s 1952 children’s classic, Studio Ghibli chief Hayao Miyazaki has wanted to adapt The Borrowers to the big screen for decades, finally leaving the actual job of directing his labour of love to animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Less of an acid trip than earlier Ghibli offering, Arriety may be a deliberate attempt to tap into the Western market with such a universally-loved story (and there are American and European dubs of the film, the latter led by our own Saoirse Ronan), but this is unmistakably the studio that brought us Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. Like the recent Ponyo though, your (inner or actual) kid might actually be able to understand this one.
Review by Paul Byrne
- Avg User rating
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Currently
4/5 Stars.
User Reviews