Written by: Craig Mazin
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Rating: [3.5/5]
Having a film completely disprove initial apprehensions deserves so much praise, especially when a preliminary impression leaves you in a place where you don’t even want to watch the film. That’s where I found myself when opting to watch The Sheep Detectives, whose premise looked far too silly and geared a bit too much towards children, but the film quickly reveals that it can hold both its silliness and also deliver something surprisingly emotionally potent.
On a farm owned by farmer George Hardy (Hugh Jackman), there is a wide array of different sheep with their own personalities. Every evening he reads murder mystery books to them, much to their pleasure. One day they awake and find George dead, and they decide to utilize all they have learned from those novels to find the killer of their farmer when it proves obvious the police do not have what it takes to investigate.
Movies featuring talking animals mostly try to cater towards children, which makes sense for reasons that don’t need an explanation. These types of films had me hooked as a child, but they do not have the same appeal in adulthood. Everything in the marketing of The Sheep Detectives indicates the film will deliver that type of fare, and for the most part it does. We have a story with cartoonish human characters and animals who can speak to each other in plain English but sound like their normal animal selves in front of those humans. However, this little film throws in a surprise, and that lies in the way it looks at memory and reckoning with grief.
These sheep make it no secret how much they care for George, their shepherd, which makes it heartbreaking for them to find him dead one morning. We also learn these sheep have an uncanny ability to close their eyes, count to three, and forget whatever negative events have transpired in their lives. They have the temptation to forget this tragedy, but the journey they go on accepting the loss they have experienced and not just wishing it away carries much more power than I initially gave the film credit for. This, in essence, becomes the central thesis of the film, especially when learning they also believe that no sheep die but rather turn into the clouds they see in the sky.
All that said, this film also operates as a murder mystery, as the title very clearly indicates. The sheep, mostly led by Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), seek to find the truth in the death of George as they refuse to believe that he just died with no malice involved. She follows all of the clues as much as she can but somehow needs to also help the humans get to the same conclusion given the sheep cannot speak. Incredibly silly, yes, but it all works because they make it explicitly clear many of these humans need all of the help they can get.
The mystery itself works fine for the most part, where it has its big reveals and twists when uncovering who exactly bears responsibility for this murder. Leading the charge on the human side, we have Nicholas Braun portraying a character very much in line with the type of roles that have served him well. The equivalent of the character he played in “Succession,” Cousin Greg, but with a fairly awful British accent. This character very much fits right into the world created here, and he receives more help than he would like to admit from these sheep to uncover the truth of this case.
While being everything one could expect from a film called The Sheep Detectives, it proves true that this film could properly balance its silliness while also bringing a truly heartfelt story for these sheep. Yes, it contains many moments placated towards kids, but the emotional components of this narrative work so well in driving home some important topics such as grief. Having this all explained and demonstrated through sheep, who do not typically have the reputation for having smarts, makes this message all the better. This film did nothing but melt away all of the skepticism I held for what it would provide, and I’m elated to have been wrong in my initial doubts.
