The Borrowers

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:

89 min

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.