Arrietty
2010 · Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Original language: Japanese
- fantasy
- animation
- family
The story
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.
What it’s like
Soft, hand-painted Ghibli watercolour: sun-dappled English garden greens, dusty timber floorboards, and the close, miniature world of a family living inside the walls of an old house, where a teaspoon becomes a tool and a sugar cube a seat. Camera moves slowly and gently through rooms and undergrowth, lingering on textures like moss, fabric, and rain-streaked glass, while the score is mostly delicate piano and soft strings with long stretches of natural ambience: wind through leaves, clocks ticking, a cat's padding steps. The feel is nostalgic and warm, a quiet summer-afternoon wonder with a thread of gentle wistfulness, and its pace is unhurried, letting small domestic routines breathe. Its emotional arc follows a shy young girl learning to trust a lonely boy and to weigh the cost of staying hidden. Intensity is very low: some peril from a cat and human suspicion, a few tense moments, but no violence, gore, or sexual content. It suits a rainy Sunday, a comfort rewatch, or a child and adult watching together, and is made for people who want a gentle, imaginative story about tiny lives and quiet courage.
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