Animation | 29 July 2011

Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, Olivia Colman

Arrietty is set in a verdant Tokyo suburb, but except for a pair of dim-witted insect-exterminators the people don't look particularly Japanese. A sickly teenage boy comes to stay at a rather grand house with his pleasant aunt and a surly old housekeeper, and on his arrival he spots Arrietty, one of the little people, as his own father and grandfather had also done as children. Arrietty is a pretty 14-year-old borrower who's been protected by her concerned mother and father from human contact. The movie is beautifully drawn, universal in its combination of east and west, and has a narrative that flows as elegantly as its graphic line.