![]() ![]() The characters deal with friendship across cultural divides, the clever recycling of resources, frank talk of illness and the finality of death - and, when the Clock family realizes they need to move on, a shorthand look at the plight of refugees.Īll of this while clambering from nail to nail and down staple-staircases inside the walls of the house, rappelling off a kitchen counter, and careening through a garden where even a close-cropped lawn amounts to an obstacle course. While there's not much in the way of incident - just the cat, the crow, the housekeeper (voiced by Carol Burnett) and Shawn's illness - the animators slip quite a bit of socially conscious content into a narrative that's chiefly about the ingenious ways the Clock family gets around in what is for them a wildly oversized landscape. Shawn is lonely and wants to make friends, the elder Clocks are as terrified as their daughter is curious, and therein hangs the tale. A pea being enough to feed the whole family, they should be able to do this unnoticed, but when Arrietty drops a sugar cube, she's discovered. Shawn (voiced by David Henrie) spots the diminutive Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler) when she and her father (Will Arnett) are foraging for food. Miyazaki was only peripherally involved in Arrietty, but director Hiromasa Yonebayashi appears to be a devoted disciple, domesticating the master's teeming visual style somewhat but maintaining his emphasis on intricate graphics, strong independent female characters and stories rooted in real-world concerns.Īrrietty's story, taken from the first book in Mary Norton's children's series The Borrowers, centers on the tiny Clock family - 14-year-old Arrietty Clock and her parents - who live in the walls of a house where a boy with a heart condition is resting up for an operation. ![]() That's because Arrietty is the latest animated opus from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation house co-founded by the great auteur Hayao Miyazaki, director of such international animated smashes as the eco-friendly Princess Mononoke, the values-oriented Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, which preceded Pixar's Up with its manse-on-the-move storyline. Delicate, however, comes with the territory. He is a sick boy who has a rheumatic fever and needs medicine that is given by Sadako Maki (Sho's aunt) as he has heart conditions that cause him to not be able to do what other boys at his age do.Īt the beginning of the film, he and his aunt are on their way to her home for him to relax and be in peace as he has an operation in a few days, but he believes that it is hopeless until he meets Arrietty.In a hyperactive kid-flick universe populated by kickboxing pandas, rampaging chipmunks and tap-dancing penguins, The Secret World of Arrietty - the tale of a girl who's barely 4 inches tall and possesses neither superpowers nor a toymaker's imprimatur - is almost startlingly delicate and calm.Ĭalm, let's note, despite the presence of a marauding house cat, a raven who'd love to make a quick snack of our heroine, and a housekeeper determined to root out the little people who live beneath her floorboards. ![]() In a director's interview, Hiromasa Yonebayashi describes him as "an ordinary 12-year-old boy," noting that he is younger than Arrietty who is 14, adding, "that adds a twist to the story." Story It is shown in the very beginning of the film that he survives the operation, as he is reminiscing the time he met Arrietty. This changes when he meets Arrietty, and he is inspired and amazed by her perseverance and strong will in rescuing her mother and thus gains the will to live on. However, he is initially listless and pessimistic about his operation, as he has no will to live, thinking that every living person will die, eventually, and he also has a low chance of survival from the operation. Sho is shown to be a quiet and very polite boy. He wears a white shirt and blue trousers, and is also seen wearing pyjamas in the movie when it is his bedtime. Sho has navy blue/black hair and brown eyes. ![]()
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