Arrietty

Did You Know?

• The film was adapted into a Japanese manga series published by Tokuma Shoten in four volumes; Viz Media released the English version in North America in January 2012.
• The North American dub was directed by Gary Rydstrom, produced by Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, and written by Karey Kirkpatrick.
• A screening of the North American release was held on January 21, 2012, in New York City.

Plot

A boy named Shō spends a week of summer at his mother’s childhood home, where his great-aunt Sadako and the housemaid Haru also live. Unseen within the walls is a Borrower family: Pod, the cautious father; Homily, the nervous mother; and their daughter Arrietty, who is curious and bold. On the day Shō arrives, he catches a glimpse of Arrietty hiding among the plants. That night, Pod takes Arrietty on her first borrowing trip, for sugar and tissue paper.

They take a sugar cube from the kitchen and then enter a bedroom through a dollhouse—it is Shō’s room. He spots Arrietty as she reaches for a tissue; she drops the sugar cube in surprise, and they escape. The next day, Shō leaves the sugar cube and a note by the air vent. Arrietty sneaks out to talk to him without showing herself, but a crow attacks her.

Shō rescues her, and Haru becomes suspicious. Pod and Homily decide they must move. Shō learns from Sadako that his mother and grandfather had once noticed the Borrowers and built a dollhouse for them, but they never appeared again. Pod returns injured from a borrowing trip, helped by Spiller, a wild Borrower.

Shō removes the floorboard hiding their home and replaces their kitchen with the dollhouse kitchen, hoping they will stay. Instead, this frightens them and speeds up their departure. Arrietty says goodbye to Shō, who apologizes for forcing them out and tells her he has a heart condition and faces a risky operation soon.

Production

Studio Ghibli announced the film on December 16, 2009, with Hiromasa Yonebayashi as director, making his feature debut. Yonebayashi had previously worked as an animator on Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, and Spirited Away, and served as reserve director for Tales from Earthsea. Hayao Miyazaki acted as production planner. The screenplay, by Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, adapts Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1953 and had already been adapted into two films and a TV series.

Studio Ghibli founders Isao Takahata and Miyazaki had considered adapting the novel for 40 years. The Japanese voice cast was announced on April 13, 2010: Mirai Shida voiced Arrietty in her first voice acting role; Ryunosuke Kamiki, who had voiced characters in other Ghibli films, voiced Shō; Tomokazu Miura and Shinobu Otake played Pod and Homily; Keiko Takeshita voiced Sadako; and Kirin Kiki voiced Haru. For the North American release, Bridgit Mendler voiced Arrietty, with a cast including Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett, and David Henrie.

The British dub featured Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, Mark Strong, Olivia Colman, Phyllida Law, and Geraldine McEwan. French musician Cécile Corbel composed the film's score and theme song, the first non-Japanese composer to work with Studio Ghibli.

Themes and analysis

Scholarly analysis of The Secret World of Arrietty emphasizes scale and spatial relationships. A study by Zeynep Fatma Niğdeli and Merve Karaoğlu Can identifies human scale as the dominant theme, noting that the Borrowers are coded more frequently than full-sized humans, with Arrietty and Sho as the most prominent characters, highlighting coexistence between different worlds. Space is key: the narrative shifts between the human house and the Borrowers' miniature dwelling, with the kitchen, larder, and children's room emphasized; the Borrowers' living room is the central site of family interaction.

Everyday objects like sewing materials and kitchen utensils accentuate the scale contrast, and the needle—first borrowed by Arrietty and later used defensively—is especially significant. Animals and plants reinforce these themes: insects and the cat Niya mark dangers and alliances, while Arrietty's attachment to leaves and flowers underscores her connection to nature. Cultural studies scholar Robert Hyland situates the film within debates about globalization and cultural hybridity, arguing that rather than being stateless (mukokuseki), the film is culturally informed, reflecting tensions between local identity and global exchange.

Elements like Aunt Sadako's Western-style kitchen and the lavish dollhouse evoke European consumer culture and colonial values of separation, contrasting with the Borrowers' Shinto-like domestic harmony. The film integrates Japanese cultural specificity: Haru refers to the Borrowers as kobito, a Shinto folkloric term with supernatural overtones absent from Norton's text. Visually, Yonebayashi employs both Impressionist-inspired techniques and hyperrealist detail, blending Western and Japanese aesthetic idioms.

Reception

Arrietty earned $19,202,743 in North America and $126,368,084 in other territories for a worldwide total of $145,570,827. It is the fourth-highest grossing anime film in the United States and the highest not based on a game franchise. In Japan, it debuted at number one, with over one million viewers in its opening weekend and a gross of about 1.35 billion yen. By August 5, 2010, it had grossed over 3.5 billion yen and attracted over 3.7 million viewers.

According to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, it was the top-grossing Japanese film of 2010, with approximately 9.25 billion yen ($110.0 million). In France, over 100,000 people watched it in its debut week, grossing over US$1.4 million; total ticket sales reached almost 740,000 between January 12 and March 1, 2011. In the United Kingdom, it generated £76,000 ($120,232) in its first weekend. In North America, it opened on 1,522 theaters—a record for a Studio Ghibli film—in ninth place with $6.45 million over the three-day President's Day weekend, and $8.68 million over four days, behind Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 3D.

This was the largest opening for a Ghibli film, beating Ponyo's $3.6 million, and scored the best weekend per-theater average for the studio ($4,235 vs. Ponyo's $3,868). It closed on June 8, 2012, with $19 million. Outside Japan and North America, its highest-grossing countries were France ($7.01 million), South Korea ($6.86 million), and Hong Kong ($1.75 million). On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 94% approval rating based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10; the critics consensus calls it visually lush and anchored with soulful depth. On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, indicating generally favorable reviews.