The Secret of Nimh is an underground animated movie that many may not know about, but is one that should definitely be recognized for what it accomplishes. Directed by famed animator, Don Bluth (in his directorial debut) and based on a 1971 children’s novel, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, written by Robert C. O’Brien, the story of a widowed mouse trying to find a way to save her dying son while discovering and also helping to save a group of hyper-intelligent mice that her husband previously helped save, was met with extreme critical appraisal when it came out, and it can’t be stated any more how The Secret of Nimh is, and by all accounts could be, one of the greatest animated movies ever made. Mrs Brisby (voiced by Elizabeth Hartman) is a recently widowed mouse whose youngest son Timothy, is gravely ill and close to death. Unable to move her children with the farmer coming to mow down their home, Mrs Brisby travels to visit the rats of NIMH; rats that were genetically mutated to become intelligent. Clearly out of her comfort zone, she comes across some interesting characters, like a bumbling crow named Jeremy (voiced by Dom DeLuise), a crabby old mouse named Mr Ages (voiced by Arthur Malet) and the mysterious truth-seeing leader of the rats, Nicodemus (voiced by Derek Jacobi).  She must brave through all the terrors that her journey has set out for her to discover the truth behind her recently deceased husband, stop the plot of a rat named Jenner (voiced by Paul Shenar) who plans to kill Nicodemus and control NIMH in his own way, and save her children before its too late. The praise that this film deserves is almost indescribable. The film flawlessly executes a tale filled with dark uncomfortable panic and heart-warming pleasantness that offers a perfect blend of magic and realism in a story that is great for both children and adults, a common element for Don Bluth’s early work. That coupled with the amazing characters, beautiful animation, a great score, perfect pacing, a gripping narrative, insightful themes, and a tone that will most likely scare, but above all entertain, this film needs to be more well known.

The story above all else feels incredibly driven by the purest and most intense emotions. The content of the film seems very close to the structure and tone of the book, but the manner in which this film presents the story is still dark in many ways, but also manages to grab people from all ages due to its emotion-heavy atmosphere. Every single outcome and direction the characters take contains strong powerful feelings that are very easy to understand and are even more obviously animated on-screen. Feelings of love, fear, sadness, bravery, happiness, all completely drive the main character and gives the movie such a warm encouraging atmosphere. It captures the hopeful innocent side of cute little mice running around wearing clothing and discovering magical stones, but always has that underlying dark harsh reality that haunts over everything without feeling forced or without meaning, it all feels remarkably genuine. The addition of the battle between science and nature gives the film that mix of fantasy and reality that while in other stories would pick a single side to be right, this film doesn’t argue for one or the other and instead just shows the positive and negatives to both, allowing the audience to figure it out themselves and just shows how anything taken too far can be a bad thing, as well as how intelligent can be used as a measuring tool to outweigh common decency. Though the addition like the magic stone from the book is featured and could easily conflict with the more grounded tone the film is going for, it manages to flow itself in nicely by adding the extra element of the unknown into the science vs nature debate and adds another complex idea to tackle, one that expands its concept rather than takes away from it. The film’s length is remarkably short, only being over an hour in length, but through the film’s pacing and how comfortably it goes through each important plot point without wasted time keeps the attention of the audience and only furthers the intrigue of what will happen next. Everything about this film is completely timeless and can be watched at anytime with any issue coming up that sucks out the authenticity.

The characters are all amazingly charming and easily land into film history for being so memorable and likeable. Mrs Brisby is without a doubt of the best and strongest female characters ever put on the big screen, as well as one of the bravest characters in film, and even one of the best mother characters in animation form. The film understands that a strong character doesn’t come from being fearless and untouchable, but from showing clear struggle and fear, but pushing through regardless. She is constantly terrified and uncomfortable with every situation she is put in throughout, but the love for her dying son and her desperate struggle to find the solution pushes her to continue further. Her passive motherly demeanor clearly shows she’s not fit for these sorts of adventures and dangers, which is precisely why when she overcomes the dangers and her strong caring heart prevails, its truly inspirational to witness. Its something that wasn’t really showcased much in animation at the time (or even really now) and its really cool to see done so well, helped out by a wonderful voice performance by Elizabeth Hartman who easily captures the character’s fragility and meek attitude, but also warmness and motherly compassion. The other characters have great designs that aren’t traditional nice-looking animated creatures like something out of a Disney property or ones that would be able to sell toys easily (their overly animated designs would make it hard to condense them down) but have so much personality and add so much to the gritty 80s feel that the movie has. Characters like Jeremy and Mrs Brisby have the light comforting appearance that can appeal to kids, but creatures like Nicodemus or the Great Owl have an unsettling look that gets the audience a bit terrified, but completely invested with how well they’re drawn and give such distinct designs. Jeremy as a comic relief is handled just well enough that he never gets annoying and Dom DeLuise always carried with this endearing quality to him that made all of his performance likeable even if they weren’t hilarious. All the voice actors fit so well into these characters and make them feel completely believable and real. Derek Jacobi is effectively wistful and elderly as Nicodemus, Peter Strauss as a fellow rat of NIMH named Justin provides for a likeable supporting character, Arthur Malet brings a stern and crotchety, but still endearing element to Mr. Ages and John Carradine brings such command and presence to the Great Owl. Jenner also works as a nice villain for the movie, with Paul Shenar adding a lot of slime and deceit to the role and still resulting in a solid character despite only showing up halfway through the film.

All these aspects are only heightened by the films gorgeous Don Bluth animation style that always perfectly captures every heartfelt and terrifying moment perfectly. The warm colors contrasting with the cold colors always sets the mood; the golden warm lighting and backgrounds extenuates the happy moments and true make them feel soft, welcoming and even magical in manners ways, while the blues and dark reds add to the grim darkness of the more intense moments and build an appropriate level of fear as well as uncertainty to every new location visited. The characters and their expressions are also so effortlessly dramatic and well composed that gives so much emotion in every drawing, almost to the point of over-animating certain things just for the sake of adding to a scene (that cat is specifically drawn to be as monstrous as it can be). Even though the backgrounds look like pictures right out of a book, the amount of effort put into the lines and the textures of every backdrop provides for some stunning environments. The score by Jerry Goldsmith also adds so much weight and importance to such a simple and smaller story with a full orchestra behind it that creates some truly outstanding pieces, and the classical feel again matches the simpler scale, but also the importance of the action that all these characters take. The themes of true power and strength coming from  courage of the heart works so well when through the eyes of the timid innocent and really captures the true meaning of the term when the actions she endures and life threatening situations she faces are very frequent.

Nothing else can be said about this movie that isn’t already clear, other than it is simply a treasure and one that a lot more people deserve to know about. Even when the movie was released, it did well from the critical space, but no one really talks about it among the animation space or even among those who admire Don Bluth’s work (with An American Tale and The Land Before Time usually being the most common responses). While those films are equally as fantastic in their own right, something about this movie just feels special and due to its minimal reach, it makes it feel all the more impactful to those who do search it out and get blown away by what they saw. The story is grandiose as well as charmingly smaller scale, the characters are amazingly likeable, and it hosts a fantastic lead in Mrs Brisby,  the animation is beautiful and perfectly fits the atmosphere, the ideas and themes in the movie are effective, but not overblown, the pace is perfect, the music is stellar, and the film is 100% timeless. One of the closest definitions of perfection in animated form ever made. Absolutely check this masterpiece out and get sucked into the magic of this charming film.

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