The title critters are wee folk, about six inches tall, living under the floors of an English cottage inhabited by a family of "beans," that is, human beings. These beans are the Lenders - Mom, Pop, and Pete (Bradley Pierce), the necessary kid. They exist solely to wind up in a jam that the borrowers, with Pete's aid, get them out of. The little people are more exotic, cousins to the leprechaun and Tolkien's hobbits but not much bigger than a house mouse. They live quietly out of sight but raid the bean world for necessities they "borrow". The family in "The Borrowers" are apparently the last of their minuscule breed: father Pod Clock (Jim Broadbent), mother Homily Clock (Celia Imire), and kids Arrietty (Flora Newbigin) and Peagreen (Tom Felton).
The heavy is John Goodman, whose outsize bulk seems exactly right for Ocious P. Potter, a lawyer who evicts the Lenders from their house because they can't produce the will of a deceased aunt who left it to them. Guess who knows where the will is? Casting Goodman was a brilliant stroke: small characters, big villain. Goodman looks like he's enjoying himself too.
What we get from director Peter Hewitt and production designer Gemma Jackson is a "Home Alone" comedy as conceived by ex-Python Terry Gilliam. Like Gilliam's movies, this one foregrounds that peculiar flavor of English whimsy which might be called "Britannia Meets the 20th Century." The quaint confronts the contemporary. Do you remember those banks of word processors in Gilliam's "Brazil" which were old manual typewriters connected by a fantastic network of pipes? That's the kind of England "The Borrowers" imagines.
That's why the production here is more interesting than the plot. The special effects make us believe that six inch creatures stalk across kitchen countertops, belay across to refrigerators, and turn a quick tour of the freezer into an epic adventure. The story, meanwhile, makes sure that Goodman gets what's coming to him in true "Home Alone" style or maybe true "Wallace and Grommit" style since the next to last confrontation with Goodman takes place in a dairy whose assembly line seems to have been designed by the genius who gave us the superb cartoon "A Close Shave."
So much for what adults like. Will kids like it? It hits on themes which have always worked well with kids. Remember, they're the ones who want to watch Joe Pesci get it for the umpteenth time in their umpteenth viewing of "Home Alone." The small versus large theme also plays well with kids, although kid movies based on this theme haven't been blockbuster hits ("Indian in the Cupboard," "A Fairy Tale."). The British accents of the borrowers may pose a problem, although for adults it ups the Cute/Quaint Quotient.
I saw "The Borrowers" at an advance screening with lots of kids. They had a good time, but I got the feeling that many of them would have been just as happy staying home watching cartoons on TV. The "magic," which consisted chiefly of its English flavor, didn't work for them. I liked it, and I kept thinking this was the kind of movie a kid ought to like. But I didn't catch that vibe from the kids sitting near me.