THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY
Gorgeous, tender, and worth your family's time — with one message worth talking through.
Should You Watch It?
This one is easy. THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY is a visually engaging film with a story worth telling your kids twice — friendship across an impossible divide, a family that loves and disciplines well, and a quiet reverence for human life that shows up in unexpected places.
It isn't flawless in what it believes. The film leans on a Romantic, environmentalist framing — the small, humble "borrowers" who "take only what they need" set against the careless power of humans — and it never quite rebukes the stealing at the story's center. There's also a theme of fate running through it, tied to a boy facing a terminal illness.
None of that should keep you away. It should just give you something to talk about afterward. This is a beautiful film for the whole family, with a worldview worth a conversation on the drive home.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESArrietty is fourteen, and she's never been seen. She and her family are "borrowers" — tiny people who live under the floorboards of an old country house, quietly taking what they need from the humans above and never, ever being noticed.
Then a boy named Shawn moves into the house to recover his health in the country air. When he discovers Arrietty, everything Arrietty has been taught about staying hidden — and about fearing humans — is suddenly in question.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is about as good as family animation gets, and the source materials back that up. The film is described as visually engaging and "saturated with environmental references," with nature depicted so beautifully that it becomes one of the movie's chief pleasures — "overwhelmingly visual qualities," as the review puts it. The story itself is called compelling, built around friendship, family loyalty, and the value of a single human life.
The craft praise here is consistent and full-throated: this is a movie made with care, and it looks it.
The Worldview
There's a lot to love in what this film holds up. Family comes first — Arrietty is shown relying on her parents, respecting them, and facing real consequences when she disobeys them. Friendship crosses an enormous divide, between the powerful and the powerless, the seen and the unseen. And running underneath it all is a quiet insistence that human life matters, even a life as small and hidden as Arrietty's.
Where the film gets shakier is in its politics of nature. The borrowers "take only what they need," and the film uses that line as a stand-in for a broader environmentalist message — one that never quite reckons with the fact that what they're taking still belongs to someone else. Stealing, in other words, is never fully rebuked. The film also carries a thread of fatalism through Shawn, a boy facing a terminal illness who describes simple acceptance that he's dying and can do nothing about it.
Scripture doesn't share that resignation. Where the film can only offer quiet acceptance of fate, the Bible offers a Father who numbers our days on purpose: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Strong moral worldview with elements extolling family and friendship, but marred by a Romantic, environmentalist message of taking “only what you need”; no foul language; some light adventure violence such as cat chases tiny people and tiny people try to avoid humans as they sneak around a house; no sex; no nudity; no alcohol use; no smoking or drugs; and, stealing not fully rebuked and there’s a theme of fate.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Arrietty's family only "borrows what they need" — but it still isn't theirs. Why does that matter, even when the person taking has so much less than the person losing?
Exodus 20:15 · Ephesians 4:28Shawn accepts his illness as something he can do nothing about. How is that different from trusting God with a future you can't control?
Jeremiah 29:11 · Proverbs 16:9Arrietty disobeys her parents and faces real consequences. Why does the Bible take a child's obedience to parents so seriously?
Ephesians 6:1–3The film asks us to care for the world around us. What does it look like to care for creation as stewards rather than owners?
Genesis 1:28 · Psalm 24:1The Final Word
This is a lovely film — patient, beautiful, and built around the things that matter: family, friendship, and the worth of a life too small to be noticed. It stumbles a little in what it believes about nature and ownership, but not enough to keep it off your family's watch list. Same verdict we opened with: worth the trip.
