The Secret World of Arrietty (2012)

All Critics (121) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (115) | Rotten (7) | DVD (6)

The fresh and simple story will win its share of young fans, though it lacks the disturbing adult elements might have attracted older audiences.

January 7, 2013 Full Review

Deborah Young

Hollywood Reporter

Top Critic

[The film] pulses with feeling for childhood and nature and develops a surprising amount of suspense considering it takes place around a single suburban home.

January 7, 2013 Full Review

Ben Sachs

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

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

February 17, 2012 Full Review

Peter Rainer

Christian Science Monitor

Top Critic

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.

February 17, 2012 Full Review

Ian Buckwalter

The Atlantic

Top Critic

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

February 17, 2012 Full Review | Comments (15)

Rafer Guzman

Newsday

Top Critic

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

February 17, 2012 Full Review

Stephen Whitty

Newark Star-Ledger

Top Critic

The Secret World of Arrietty is a return to the land of imagination that is so often the basis for these beautiful films, which continually show that animation can be so much more than just a cartoon.

January 23, 2013 Full Review

Jeff Beck

We Got This Covered

With The Secret World of Arrietty, Yonebayashi proves himself to be not just a worthy successor to Miyazaki, but an accomplished visionary in his own right.

January 7, 2013 Full Review

Jason Buchanan

TV Guide's Movie Guide

It's not quite on the level of some of the studio's other works, but [it's] still fascinating to watch for its beautiful animation, interesting characters, and the heartwarming relationship between Shawn and Arrietty.

September 17, 2012 Full Review

Jeff Beck

Examiner.com

Ghibli makes another gorgeous growing-up movie

May 24, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Marty Mapes

Movie Habit

If I didn't think Studio Ghibli's disappointingly wan animated feature would pass out from the trauma, I'd definitely give The Secret World of Arrietty a fist-bump for, if nothing else, top-notch picture and sound.

May 22, 2012 Full Review

Jaime N. Christley

Slant Magazine

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.

May 10, 2012 Full Review

Brian Gibson

Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

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.'

April 21, 2012 Full Review

Linda Cook

Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

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

April 16, 2012 Full Review

Bruce Bennett

Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

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

March 23, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Roger Moore

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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

March 12, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Kelly Vance

East Bay Express

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

March 9, 2012 Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

San Francisco Examiner

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

March 4, 2012 Full Review

Josh Larsen

LarsenOnFilm

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.

March 2, 2012 Full Review

Chris Barsanti

PopMatters

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.

March 2, 2012 Full Review | Comments (8)

John Beifuss

Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

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

February 25, 2012 Full Review

Daniel M. Kimmel

New England Movies Weekly

...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.

February 24, 2012 Full Review

Jeff Meyers

Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

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

February 24, 2012 Full Review

Marc Savlov

Austin Chronicle

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.

February 24, 2012 Full Review

Nell Minow

Beliefnet

• 1. Pod (English version): Borrowers take only what they need.
  – Submitted by Frances H (3 months ago)
• 1. Shawn (English version): It's funny how each day you wake up and never really know if it will be one that will change your life forever.
  – Submitted by Frances H (3 months ago)
• 1. Shawn (English version): My name's Shawn. What's yours?
  2. Arrietty (English version): Not that it's any of your business, but it's Arietty.
  – Submitted by Mary Kathryn P (4 months ago)
• 1. Shawn (English version): You've given me the courage to live. [right before operation]
  – Submitted by Nathan S (10 months ago)
• 1. Shawn (English version): When I saw you, I just wanted to find a way to protect you.
  – Submitted by Tenika E (10 months ago)
• 1. Arrietty (English version): [quietly] Yay!
  – Submitted by Ben R (10 months ago)

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