94% The Secret World of Arrietty

All Critics (117) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (109) | Rotten (7)

As pretty as it is, this Secret World is too Earthbound by far.

The Secret World of Arrietty is a marvelously captivating animated feature about very tiny people and the full-scale world they inhabit.

Yonebayashi gives Arrietty an excellent sense of balance, with the adventure aspects of the story, which feel legitimately dangerous providing well-paced contrast the film's more placid moments.

It's an enjoyable and attractive-looking film, but a little of that "Speed Racer" energy wouldn't have been such a bad thing.

The visual details are inventive, and the animation - particularly the colors - is lovely.

"The Secret World of Arrietty'' is a feast for the eyes that will engage the entire family.

Studio Ghibli's best film since Miyazaki's eco-fable masterpiece Spirited Away. Its story is impeccably paced, its look beautifully imagined, and its drama perfectly built-up. Bristles, underfoot, with some delightful feminism and environmentalism.

There's a gentle movie from Japan that's going to seem familiar to a lot of fans of the series of books about 'The Borrowers.'

Like motion picture Yoga--quietly cathartic and just the thing to raise your kids on.

It certainly belongs in the second rank of Ghibli fantasies. But give it a chance.

Most will be caught up in its beautiful spell, immersed in great storytelling at its finest.

The soft-focus animation has an impressionistic quality, as if a gentle breeze had wafted across a Monet canvas.

This smart, winsome fairy tale is not quite Hiyao Miyazaki, but it still might be the best animated film that (some few) will see all year.

Another Studio Ghibli wonder, as heartbreaking for its devotion to craft, artistry and intelligent storytelling (for viewers of all ages) as for its themes of inevitable exile and impossible love.

There's a gentle movie from Japan that's going to seem familiar to a lot of fans of the series of books about 'The Borrowers.'

...yet another jewel in the crown of Studio Ghibli.

...creates a sense of wide-eyed wonder and discovery as we experience the awe-inspiring mysteries of an ordinary house as seen from the four-inch borrower's point of view.

The animation, a gorgeous blend of bewitching watercolored backgrounds and poignantly rendered characters, is, as ever, beyond reproach.

What is most effective is the way the sense of peaceful shelter and retreat in the country setting contrasts with the precariousness of the situations faced by Shawn and Arrietty.

It's hard to imagine this scenario playing out with more delicacy and care than animator-turned-director Yonebayashi Hiromasa brings to bear.

Arrietty has an elegiac mood, like a more wan and sedate Toy Story.

Gently enchanting, an extraordinary adventure

There may not be a frenzy of action and fast cuts but each scene has meticulous details about how the borrowers live, how they make use of the things in their environment to survive.

Tiny people who live in the walls of a rural home are put at risk when they are discovered by the humans residing there. Studio Ghibli offers a soothing animated version of the classic children's novels.

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