Plot
A secret family of four-inch people living inside the walls of a house must save their home from an evil real estate developer.
Release Year: 1997
Rating: 5.6/10 (6,921 voted)
Director:
Peter Hewitt
Stars: John Goodman, Jim Broadbent, Mark Williams
Storyline The Borrowers are four-inch high "little people" who live under the floorboards. When the owner of the house they live in dies and evil realtor Ocious Potter wants to destroy the house to build luxury apartments on its place, they start to fight him with the help of the son of house owner, Pete.
Writers: Mary Norton, Gavin Scott
Cast: John Goodman
-
Ocious P. Potter
Mark Williams
-
Exterminator Jeff
Jim Broadbent
-
Pod Clock
Celia Imrie
-
Homily Clock
Flora Newbigin
-
Arrietty 'Ett' Clock
Tom Felton
-
Peagreen Clock
Raymond Pickard
-
Spud Spiller
Bradley Pierce
-
Pete Lender
Aden Gillett
-
Joe Lender
Doon Mackichan
-
Victoria Lender
Hugh Laurie
-
Police Officer Steady
Ruby Wax
-
Town Hall Clerk
Andrew Dunford
-
Dustbunny Binn
Bob Goody
-
Minty Branch
Patrick Monckton
-
Swag
(as Patrick Monkton)
Taglines:
The screen's smallest heroes in the year's biggest adventure.
Release Date: 13 February 1998
Filming Locations: Ealing Town Hall, Ealing, London, England, UK
Box Office Details
Budget: $29,000,000
(estimated)
Opening Weekend: DEM 640,552
(Germany)
(14 December 1997)
(355 Screens)
Gross: $24,000,000
(Worldwide)
(11 October 1998)
(except USA)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
When Pete has captured Arietty, he puts her in a goldfish bowl. The bowl is standing on top of the book "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift. This also foreshadows the scene where Ocious Potter is subdued by the Borrowers at the end of the movie.
Goofs:
Incorrectly regarded as goofs:
Similarly, the geographical location is entirely fictional, so that accents, uniforms, vocabulary, currency, vehicles and driving styles are not consistent with any given country.
Quotes: Pod Clock:
We may be small but heaven help anyone who thinks he might squish us.
User Review
Inventive And Real-Looking
Rating: 8/10
When this first came out, almost a decade ago, I thought it was the
best job I had seen of making miniature people look real. This showed
how far technology had come in films and now, of course, we see a lot
more amazing special effects.
It was fun to view how these "borrowers" moved about, using ordinary
household items to propel themselves around a normal-sized house. It's
all pretty ingenious.
John Goodman plays a cartoon-like role, a role that is generally funny
to watch. The cast has a mixture of American and English actors, with a
setting of 1940s Britain. I first saw this on VHS and then later on
DVD, which was improvement not only video-wise, but audio, too, as it
somehow went from mono to surround sound. This might be considered a
kids movie but a lot of the humor is more adult-oriented.
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