Number 99 - The Secret World of Arrietty

As usual another Thursday night was kicked off for our Girls Night with this week being number 99 on our countdown list. Number 99 was The Secret World of Arrietty. For a little background of the movie, it's a story of the Borrowers, who are little people living in your homes simply borrowing little bits of things as needed to survive. It may sound familiar to the original Borrowers that was produced in 1997. The concepts of both movies are the same but that is about it. This version is a Japanese animated version while the other was real live actors. As for the story of what happens, the two movies are different and even the family of Borrowers is slightly different in the two movies. Personally, I liked this version better than the 1997 movie. I enjoyed the colorfulness in the animation, the soothing music and the Japanese influence in the characters.

As typical Disney, the movie had good themes and morals to the story. Without giving to much away to the movie, there's a little bit of love and most definitely friendship. And overall I would say that the movie teaches children that no matter how different someone may be, you can often times be friends if you keep an open mind and heart. I believe that was our favorite part of the movie, the friendship/love developed between Arrietty the daughter of the Borrower family and Shawn, the young boy staying with his aunt while he is sick. Although you never quite know what Shawn is sick with, your heart goes out to him since he is very good hearted and sweet. There were a couple moments of sweet remarks made by Shawn to Arrietty which caused for us all to say "AWWW". Including my favorite line at the end of the movie by Shawn saying "My heart is stronger now, because your in it". I would give this movie two thumbs up and suggest it to families of all ages. This is definitely a must see for your Disney collection.