Inspired Sheep Detectives is a Wild and Wooly Delight
Adapted from German author Leonie Swann’s 2005 best-seller Three Bags Full, director Kyle Balda and writer Craig Mazin deliver one of the summer movie season’s most enchanting family-friendly sensations with The Sheep Detectives. The story of a flock of inquisitive sheep who work together to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd, this Babe meets Charlotte’s Web meets Agatha Christie meets Midsomer Murders is a bona fide blast from the first scene to last.
On a farm on the outskirts of the small township of Denbrook, George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) looks after his flock of eccentric sheep with thoughtfulness, care, devotion, and love. He’s named each of them, and can’t wait to introduce his fluffy family to his daughter Rebecca Hampstead (Molly Gordon), a young woman he’s sadly never met and has only conversed with through handwritten letters. Each night, George sends the rapt flock to sleep by reading them murder mystery novels, and the wide-eyed, inquisitive Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is always able to figure out “who did it,” much to the shock and awe of her meadow mates.
Fiction becomes reality when George turns up dead one tragic morning, and the local Denbrook constabulary, led by Officer Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), is initially clueless as to what could have happened to him. But Lily is determined to put the skills she’s learned listening to all those murder mysteries to good use. She and other members of her flock will discover who killed their shepherd, and they’ll get Derry to assist them in their pursuit of justice, whether or not he even realizes they’re assisting him.
After Jackman, Gordon, and Braun, the human supporting cast includes Nicholas Galitzine (a London reporter covering the local cultural festival), Hong Chau (Denbrook’s lone innkeeper), Tosin Cole (another shepherd who has his eye on owning Lily and the rest of her flock), Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (a minister who knows George’s deepest secrets), Conleth Hill (the local butcher who is highly distrustful of all vegetarians), and Emma Thompson (the late farmer’s big city lawyer). Along with Gordon, they make up the pool of likely suspects Lily, Derry, and the sheep are investigating for George’s murder.
As for the vocal cast, it’s a who’s who of all-stars led by Louis-Dreyfus, Chris O’Dowd (as Lily’s closest confidant, Mopple), and Bryan Cranston (a loner sheep with a secretive past, Sebastian, who challenges the flock to face their fears). Other members of the talented ensemble include Bella Ramsey, Regina Hall, Rhys Darby, Patrick Stewart, Brett Goldstein (in a dual role), and energetic newcomer Tommy Birchall (portraying a winter lamb, a seasonal anomaly the rest of the flock is stupidly prejudicial to, at least initially). They all play an important part in the proceedings, and each manages to make a lasting impression.
The success of the film is largely due to Mazin’s sublime adaptation. This is an intelligent, sensitive, empathetic, and surprisingly complex slice of comedic melodrama. A long way from his early days working on subpar projects like Superhero Movie, Identity Thief, and The Hangover Part III, the Chernobyl and The Last of Us creator is at the height of his storytelling powers. Like the great kid films of the 1970s and ‘80s, Mazin isn’t afraid to deal with heady topics like unexpected death, racism, grief, cultural bias, and shortsighted groupthink.
That’s plenty of food for thought on its own, and all of it leads to valuable conversations well worth having. Even better, none of it intrudes on the film’s extraordinary entertainment value. One of the sillier, yet still highly amusing, sequences involves Lily and Mopple trying to cross a paved road, much to Sebastian’s amusement, only to be upstaged by a two-legged interloper. Darker moments include the trio discovering, much to their horror, what happens to the sheep who reside on a neighbor’s farm, while another deals with a startling sacrifice that brought unexpected tears to my eyes.
But the best moments concern a trait all the sheep share, and Lily’s sudden realization that the flock’s utilization of it leads to far more long-term harm than it does any momentary good. The animals, other than Mopple, can forget whatever they want, whenever they want. Something weird or strange happens that makes them uncomfortable? Forgotten. An event that makes them sad? Forgotten. A painful tragedy that rocks their world and makes them all look at life differently, maybe even painfully? It can be forgotten as well.
Pain and grief are a vital part of life; that the sheep can decide to forget about that entirely may provide brief solace, but it also keeps them from discovering even greater joys, find deeper sources of pleasure, and develop lasting relationships. It also keeps them from experiencing love. Once Lily realizes how much all of them owe George for his selfless care, nurturing, protection, and friendship, the sheep starts to understand all she and her flock owe him. Forgetting about all of that cannot be an option, no matter how much doing so may briefly ease their collective suffering. Their memories of George are important and everlasting, and they’ll have even more value if they hold on to them.
The mystery itself is easy to solve, but there’s nothing wrong with that. This is, after all, a kid’s movie, so constructing a puzzle box that even the youngest viewer can piece together as long as they pay attention and follow all of the clues is part of the fun. Balda, an animation director known for hits like Despicable Me 3 and Minions: The Rise of Gru, making his live-action debut, does a nice job steering events to their foregone conclusion and I’d be curious to see what he’s got up his sleeve next. The Sheep Detectives is delightful.
Film Rating: 3½ (out of 4)
