'Arrietty' finds tiny, charming world

Review

Considering the eccentric, almost psychedelic fantasy worlds created in Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki's tales, a story of tiny people living beneath the floorboards of a house seems almost normal.

"The Secret World of Arrietty," from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli, also is a pleasant antidote to the siege mentality of so many Hollywood cartoons, whose makers aim to occupy every instant of the audience's attention with an assault of noise and images.

Slow, stately, gentle and meditative, "Arrietty" nevertheless is a marvel of image and color, its old-fashioned pen-and-ink frames vividly bringing to life the world of children's author Mary Norton's "The Borrowers."

Previously adapted in the 1997 live-action slapstick comedy "The Borrowers," Norton's stories follow a family of teeny people who live off things scavenged from nature or from the oversized human world that's unaware of their miniature existence.

Spirited 14-year-old Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler, star of Disney Channel's "Good Luck Charlie") lives with her mom and dad (real-life couple Poehler and Arnett) and is about to join in on her first borrowing expedition to fetch back supplies from the "human beans" living upstairs.

Yet Arrietty violates the rules — she's seen by Shawn (David Henrie of Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place"), a sickly youth who has come to stay in the country with his aunt.

What could turn into boy-meets-girl, boy-squashes-girl-like-a-bug instead becomes a sweet, chaste, sort-of first love story. Arrietty sheds her fear of humans, and Shawn proves a tender soul who understands the fragile existence of his small friend and her kind.

The warm simplicity of the story and the cleverness and artistry of the animation make up for any vocal shortcomings, though.

It's delightful, the ways the borrowers make essential tools out of found objects we take for granted — a leaf as an umbrella, nails to create stairs or staples to build ladders, strips of duct tape to help scale walls.

The wonder the film reveals in the mundane is what makes "The Secret World of Arrietty" such a fantastic place to visit.