The Borrowers (2011 film)
| The Borrowers | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Ben Vanstone (screenplay) Mary Norton (original novel) |
| Directed by | Tom Harper |
| Starring |
Stephen Fry Christopher Eccleston Aisling Loftus Charlie Hiscock Victoria Wood Sharon Horgan Robert Sheehan |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Radford Neville |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC One |
| Original release |
|
The Borrowers is a 2011 British television film starring Stephen Fry, Christopher Eccleston and Victoria Wood, based broadly on Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers.
The Clock family (tiny human-like "Borrowers") live under the floorboards at the Driver–Hellman house, suspected but so far uncaught by Mrs Driver (Victoria Wood), grandmother of young James Hellman (Charlie Hiscock). Daughter Arrietty Clock (Aisling Loftus) is seen by James and they become friends, but his grandmother's suspicions are heightened. Lifting a floorboard, she finds missing items, including furniture from James' dead mother's dollhouse. Searching online for information on "little people", Mrs Driver befriends a London university Professor Mildeye (Stephen Fry) online. Unlike his skeptical colleagues, she asks more about his specialty, Homo sapiens redactus. He visits to learn more of Mrs Driver's sightings, but James tries to take the blame for all the 'borrowings.'
Their secret home compromised, the Clocks escape via a drainpipe to the sewers, where Pod (Christopher Eccleston) berates his daughter. Her parents then take Arrietty to the disused City Road tube station, where there is a thriving urban community of little people she had known nothing of. She is nearly run over by Spiller (Robert Sheehan), a biker-type leader. Arrietty's mother Homily (Sharon Horgan) makes Spiller apologise, and after Pod hires Spiller with a gold coin ('borrowed' from Mrs Driver) to guide them to a new home, the youths become friendlier.
Mildeye and his lab assistant Jenny (Anne Hirsch) set an array of traps for the Clocks in the sewers around the Hellman-Driver home. Arrietty triggers one, but her parents push her out of the way and are caught themselves. Despite her protestations, Spiller drags Arrietty away to safety at Pod's request. Mildeye takes the captured Clocks to his lab, but James deletes Mildeye's phone message to his grandmother about the capture. Mrs Driver, berates James' father Robert (Shaun Dooley) for being away too much (though he is absent in order to seek work), but is concealing from him mounting arrears that may lose them their home.
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