The Secret of MIMH

Mrs. Brisby, a recently widowed mouse, only has a few days to move herself and her children out of their home in the field before the farmer starts his plowing, but she is unable to leave, because her young son is ill. Seeking the help of the hyper-intelligent rats who live in a nearby colony in the farmer’s front yard, Mrs. Brisbane gets caught up in a conflict amongst the rats, all while her family’s lives hang in the balance, as the time of plowing draws near.

“Jonathan Brisby was killed today while helping with the plan…”

This is a really great opening line, but it also begins to throw a spotlight on the fact that Jonathan’s wife, Mrs. Brisby, our valiant main character, doesn’t seem to have a first name herself…

It’s also hard not to notice how the film somewhat unavoidably implies that while Jonathan may have been a bit of a selfless revolutionary when he was out in the world, he seems like he was also kind of a terrible husband, one who was barely ever home, and who had a mountain of dangerous secrets about himself, and his activities, that he never bothered to tell his wife anything about.

Also, weird tangent, but like most of the animal characters in this film, Mrs. Brisby wears clothes, specifically a tattered red cloak. At one point in the the film, the story has her take off her cloak in a deliberately mentioned plot point, so that it “doesn’t get caught on anything,” so basically our hero is completely naked during several action sequences…?

I mean… that’s an almost inexcusable, and frankly kind of embarrassing, level of being Horny on Main on the part of the creators and animators behind this film.

Anyway, despite seemingly being a near-constant presence on cable in the ‘80s, I’ve never actually seen this whole movie. I’ve seen parts, but I’ve never sat down to watch it. I don’t know why. As a kid, I was always willing to watch a cartoon. It didn’t matter what it was about, I was pretty much always willing to give them a chance, especially if it was an adventure story. Plus, Dom Deluise is the voice of Jeremy the Crow. How could I have not ever watched this movie?

I don’t have an answer.

So, I decided it was past time to sit down and check out The Secret of NIMH.

Based on Robert C. O'Brien's 1971 children's novel, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which was partially inspired by scientist’s John Calhoun’s 1962 attempt to study population density by manipulating the levels of food, water, and viable sexual partners in various “rodent utopias,” then using quotes from the Book of Revelations to describe how the utopias “devolved into hell,” the same study that is often cited as having been a big part in the inspiration of Soylent Green too, The Secret of NIMH is an incredibly mature kid’s movie. Filled with tragedy, danger, peril, and complex ideas the likes of which most kids’ films didn’t have even back in the 70s and 80s, let alone when compared to the saccharine-sweet, soft-sided, and scared-parent-approved stuff you get now, it’s surprisingly dark.

There’s Dragon, the one-eyed, ill-groomed monstrosity that is the farmer’s cat, a terrible beast who lives only to murder, the remorseless creature who ate Jonathan Brisby alive, and who now moves through the fields like a hungry shark. There’s the massive pile of shifting and clattering mouse bones that Mrs. Brisby stumbles through while seeking the wisdom of the Great Owl. There’s the nightmarish spider that stalks her through the eerie darkness of the Great Owl’s hallow, only to be noisily squashed beneath the Great Owl’s gnarled talons. Then there’s the Great Owl himself, a huge and terrible god looming over Mrs. Brisby with its balefully glowing eyes, clad in a shroud of cobwebs… I imagine this film must have scared the shit out of an entire generation of children.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t watch it as a kid…

Because there’s a very real and near constant sense of danger here, not to mention a pervasive feeling of helplessness, not just before the relentless press of progress, but also against the myriad of foes who stand in the way of adapting to the inevitably of change. All while the plot tuns on some surprisingly grown-up ideas.

Besides the ticking clock of the farmer’s plow—a monster with its own terrifying sequence of inexorably sharp metal, clanking and smoking as it destroys the field, nearly killing Mrs. Brisby and Aunt Shrew—the main conflict stems from the fate of the rat city, a place hidden deep beneath the farmer’s rosebush, an advanced colony built from pilfered human goods, and which utilizes electricity.

We learn that Rat City’s need to relocate has long been an issue within their community. Some of the rats want the colony to move to the distant and isolated Thorne Valley so that they can not only be safe from the lab still hunting them, but so they can finally live free of being dependent upon the scraps of humanity. But since the whole idea of safely relocating depends on sedating the monster cat, Dragon, and needs a mouse small enough to pull it off, we find out that this dangerous mission is not only how Mr. Ages, a very learned mouse and friend of the Brisby family, broke his leg, but this is also how Jonathan Brisby died. The debate takes on a sudden urgency when the rats learn that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) lab plans on exterminating the colony the next day.

This news is related to why some of the rats don’t want to move, and want war instead. They are still angry over what was done to them in the NIMH lab, and they want revenge. They push for killing the farmer and his family.

Because it turns out that Jonathan Brisby, and the rats who live in the rose bush in the farmer’s front lawn, are all escapees of the NIMH lab, all of them having been tortured in the name of science, all of them having been brutalized there, and subjected to strange injections.

But these experiments opened up the wonders of the universe to the captured animals, and extended their lives—something else that Jonathan Brisby did not share with his wife—which is why the lab wants to exterminate them. This is also how the rats and mice were eventually able to escape too, when they were able to read the instructions on how to open their own cage doors. And it’s during this escape that we learn that the mouse, Jonathan Brisby, is responsible for saving all the rats.

We also get to watch as most of the cute cartoon mice fall to their deaths.

Because of Jonathan Brisby’s actions, the rats agree to move the Brisby house out of the way of the plow. All of this leads to a whole bunch of new peril, and a climax that is a series of betrayals, culminating in a big sword fight under the flashing racket of a thunderstorm, all as the Brisby house, with the children trapped inside, has begun to sink into the mud, but only after friendly grandpa rat is crushed to death beneath a cinder block. In the end, the rat villain is impaled at the end of a rival rat’s sword.

But it’s too late, Mrs. Brisby’s house, with her children still trapped inside, has sank below the surface, vanished, swallowed by the mud.

Luckily, earlier in the film, Nicodemus, the kindly grandpa rat, gave Mrs. Brisby the very definition of a deus ex Machina in a magical amulet that will activate when the “wearer is courageous.” I guess he just had it lying around.

So that’s our big ending, magic superpowers out of nowhere save Mrs. Brisby’s children by lifting them and their house up out of what was almost their muddy grave, and then sets it down in a new spot, safely out of the plow’s path.

And they all live happily after…

With such incredibly impressive animation, done in the classic style, a list of compelling characters, and a surprisingly deep and mature plot, The Secret of NIMH won a Saturn Award for Best Animated Film of 1982, but lost Best Fantasy film to The Dark Crystal, an admittedly beloved by many film that I hate with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. I just can’t stand watching any of it, it is cinematic nails on a chalkboard for me, and I honestly wish the Skeksis had won in the end, because I hate the Gelfing’s stupid faces so much… SO MUCH!

God damn it, I fucking hate their weird little noses and stupid little creepy-smooth cherub faces. I can barely even describe my hatred…

But I digress…

Though The Secret of NIMH was only a moderate success at the box office, it eventually entered heavy rotation on cable, and ended up turning a profit through home video and overseas releases, a pathway to financial success that is no longer really an option for films anymore.

In the end, The Secret of NIMH is a great movie, the kind that kids should still watch, even if it does give them a few nightmares, or maybe specifically because it does give them nightmares. I don’t know if there’s a great lesson in that experience or anything, but sometimes it’s good to be scared, to perch at the edge of your seat, or to watch while hunkered down and peeking over the couch.

That’s fun.