It tells a variation on a tale that’s common across cultures, that of tiny people living alongside average human beings, in this case “borrowing” what they need and trying to stay undetected.
Known as The Borrower Arrietty in Japan, Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s feature-film debut contains many of the fantasy hallmarks of Studio Ghibli while lacking some of the magic of the work of its masters. It tells a variation on a tale that’s common across cultures, that of tiny people living alongside average human beings, in this case “borrowing” what they need and trying to stay undetected. A “borrower” named Arrietty becomes friends with a human named Shō after he goes to spend the summer in his mother’s childhood home. The adaptation of British writer Mary Norton’s The Borrowers feels a bit slight on a story level, but this is a case in which the production elevates the material. Yonebayashi and his team use perspective in a way that makes the ordinary seem extraordinary, giving the whole experience the sheen of a classic fairy tale. It is bursting with imaginative visuals, even if they sometimes seem to overwhelm the story and characters.