Taglines: The screen’s smallest heroes in the year’s biggest adventure.
The Borrowers movie storyline. Young Pete Lender (Bradley Pierce) is setting up traps around his house, explaining to his parents that things in their house are being stolen, despite his parents believing otherwise. However, it turns out that a family of tiny people (“Borrowers”), are living in the house, borrowing stuff without being seen. Pod Clock (Jim Broadbent) and his children, Arrietty (Flora Newbigin) and Peagreen (Tom Felton), make their way through the kitchen to “borrow” the radio’s battery.
Arrietty, while treating herself with some ice cream in the freezer, is accidentally shut inside just as the Lenders return. Pod manages to rescue Arietty, but jams the ice cube tube in the process and is forced to leave one of his gadgets behind, which is found by Mr. Lender. Meanwhile, the will of Mrs. Lender’s aunt Mrs. Allabaster is the only proof that the house rightfully belongs to the family, yet their lawyer Ocious P. Potter (John Goodman) cannot find it and has already made plans to demolish their house in order to build condominiums on the land, and the Lenders have until Saturday to move away.
Arietty is trapped by Pete, who is actually astonished to discover the Borrowers. Pete also explains to Arietty that the house is being demolished due to the absence of Mrs. Allabaster’s will, meaning that both families will have to move. After Arrietty explains the situation to her family, Pod reluctantly agrees to have the family move to the new house, despite being somewhat upset that Arrietty has defied so much about the way of the Borrowers. Unfortunately, during the journey, Arrietty and Peagreen fall out of the moving truck and make their way back to the old house, where they find the new house on a map.
However, Potter turns up and finds the will hidden in a safe inside the wall. It turns out that Mrs. Allabaster had stated that she did not trust banks and preferred to keep the will in the house, something Potter deliberately kept from his clients. But as he tries to burn it, Arrietty and Peagreen recover the will, determined to save the house for both the Lenders and the Clocks. Upon seeing the Clocks’ underground home, Potter calls the local exterminator Jeff (Mark Williams), but they manage to escape.
The Borrowers is a 1997 British–American live-action fantasy comedy film loosely based on the children’s novel of the same name by author Mary Norton. In 1998 it was nominated for the title of Best British Film in the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, but lost to Gary Oldman’s Nil by Mouth.
The film also picked up another two nominations and one win in awards. Some of the film’s scenes were shot on location in the village of Theale, near Reading, Berkshire, where all of the buildings and shops in the High Street were painted dark green. When the film was released in the United Kingdom, it opened on #2, behind Alien: Resurrection. The next week, the film regained the position, though under Tomorrow Never Dies.
The Borrowers (1998)
Directed by: Peter Hewitt
Starring: John Goodman, Jim Broadbent, Mark Williams, Hugh Laurie, Bradley Pierce, Celia Imrie, Flora Newbigin, Tom Felton, Doon Mackichan, Andrew Dunford
Screenplay by: Gavin Scott, John Kamps
Production Design by: Gemma Jackson
Cinematography by: Trevor Brooker, John Fenner
Film Editing by: David Freeman
Costume Design by: Marie France
Set Decoration by: Careen Hertzog
Art Direction by: Andrew Ackland-Snow, Jim Morahan, Cliff Robinson
Music by: Harry Gregson-Williams
MPAA Rating: PG for mild peril and some crude humor.
Distributed by: PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Release Date: February 13, 1998
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