The Borrowers is a lively, endearing, and clever screen adaptation of the beloved children's novels by Mary Norton. Pod (Jim Broadbent) and Homily (Celia Imrie) live with their children, Arrietty (Flora Newbigin) and Pea (Tom Felton), beneath the floorboards of a house owned by the Lenders. These little people, called The Borrowers, follow a code of being quiet, alert, cautious, and inconspicuous. But their cozy life is interrupted when ten-year-old Pete (Bradley Pierce) finds out about them and enlists their help in stopping a greedy lawyer (John Goodman) from demolishing the house they all live in for an apartment complex.
Peter Hewitt directs this lighthearted movie with just the right mix of playfulness and fantasy. Visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang works wonders in the creation of a Lilliputian universe. The Borrowers salutes the interconnectedness of worlds, in this case large and small ones. It also shows that courtesy not only keeps civilization humming but benefits all who practice it.