Miyazaki didn't direct Arrietty, yet it's impossible not to see his stamp on the film. He produced and co-wrote it, but handed over directorial duties to longtime apprentice Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who has worked as an animator on every one of the Miyazaki's projects since Mononoke. The style and the themes remain familiar: gorgeous hand-drawn animation with water-colored landscapes; a strong connection to the natural world; a pacifistic inclination towards resolving conflicts by means other than violence; a strong female protagonist who is also a child.

That protagonist is the titular Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler in the U.S. version of the movie), the 14-year-old only child of a family of "Borrowers"—a race of four-inch-tall, otherwise human-like beings who live in the walls and under the floorboards of the houses of full-sized "Human Beans," as the Borrowers call them. Her family lives in the country house of an elderly woman named Sadako (Carol Burnett), making their way by taking little things that won't be missed by their larger counterparts: a cube of sugar, a square of tissue, a discarded pin. Expeditions into the cavernous world of the Beans are potentially dangerous excursions—rappelling from countertops to floors, or racing around the shadows while hoping to go unnoticed by the pudgy housecat.

As Arrietty begins, two things are changing in the world of its main character. First, a sickly teenage boy, Shawn (David Henrie), has moved into the house with Aunt Sadako, and has caught a glimpse of Arrietty hiding in the grasses immediately upon his arrival. Secondly, it is time for a rite of passage: her first borrowing. It's a mishap during the latter event that confirms for Shawn that he did indeed see what he thought he did, and makes her family believe they need to leave now that they've been discovered. While Arrietty insists that Shawn means them no harm, her mother chides her, "The children are more vicious than the grownups."

Mom is a worrywart voiced by Amy Poehler, who, as one might expect, provides some of the film's most comic moments with her anxious histrionics. More surprising is the restrained turn from Will Arnett as Arrietty's father. Arnett plays it almost entirely straight here, playing Arrietty's father as a plain-spoken, practical, but loving adventurer. In his comedic roles, his distinctive voice—an instrument like deep pile velvet studded with pure granite gravel—is often the subject of self parody, but here he becomes the solid, comforting influence for a family in danger.

For all the thematic similarities to Miyazaki's work, there's one familiar item missing from Arrietty: magic. Many of the previous Studio Ghibli exports take place in worlds where magic and mysticism—either based around Japanese mythology or from Miyazaki's own mind—are a part of the everyday, from the woodland spirts of My Neighbor Totoro to the dragons, witches, and fantastical alternate universe of Spirited Away. Sure, Arrietty features four-inch-tall people, but apart from their size, the world they exist in is entirely familiar. There are no ghosts, no unfamiliar creatures, no spirit worlds, no moving castles. Just a quaint country house populated by big people, little people, a cat, a crow, and all manner of insects.