FILM REVIEW SACHIN CHATTE
Film: The Sheep Detectives
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Molly Gordon, Nicholas Braun
Directed by: Kyle Balda
Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes
Rating: * * * *
A film about sheep who solve a murder mystery? Bring it on, one would say. Given the volume of pedestrian stories doing the rounds these days, sheep involved in solving a crime is as refreshing as it gets. The Sheep Detectives, directed by Kyle Balda — the man behind Minions — is a charming film with some good old-fashioned wit. Executive producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are well-known names, recently associated with Project
Hail Mary.
For a story so simple on the surface, the screenplay by Craig Mazin — best known for Chernobyl and The Last of Us — attempts to rise above the ordinary with some subtle and not-so-subtle allegories. What the director has achieved here is a film that appeals to all age groups, and
that is no easy task.
Based on the novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, The Sheep Detectives has the innocence of Babe and the charm of Paddington. Then there are the one-liners and the layers that make the sheep seem like inhabitants of a world not unlike our own. There is discrimination among the flock (the ‘winter sheep’ are outcasts, including a young lamb), talk of death, memory (“memory keeps the ones we love alive”, goes one line), friendship, and above all, compassion. To its credit, the film handles all of this without trying too hard.
As the film opens, we don’t hear the MGM lion roar — instead, we hear the bleating of sheep. In the small English town of Denbrook, George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) lives on a large farm with his flock. He stays alone in a house trailer — tending to the sheep during the day, and at night, as a ritual, reading aloud from a book, usually a murder mystery. And yes, the sheep follow every word and speculate on who the killer might be.
They do speak, but only among themselves. When humans are present, they revert to the sounds we expect of them.
Much like a human settlement, the flock is a varied cast of characters — they don’t quite understand the human world, except through the stories George reads to them. Lily (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the calm, sharp one — not that she’s without flaws. Bryan Cranston voices Sebastian, a tough black Icelandic sheep. In a letter George writes, he describes them all: the shaggy Wool-Eyes (Rhys Darby), then there is Sir Ritchfield (Patrick Stewart), two pugnacious twin rams — always fighting or spoiling for one — both voiced by Brett Goldstein, and Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), blessed with the finest memory in the flock. “The sheep are either eating, or thinking about eating,”
George notes.
When tragedy strikes and George is found dead — his death assumed to be natural — it is the sheep who take it upon themselves to uncover the truth. The village has a bumbling, Clouseau-like police officer in Derry (Nicholas Braun), not the sharpest tool in the shed, though you sense he’ll get there eventually. The suspects include the local butcher and a fellow shepherd. Arriving on the scene is Rebecca (Molly Gordon), George’s daughter, and his lawyer Lydia Harbottle (Emma Thompson, knocking it out of the park, as always), who is there to read his will.
With plenty of help from the sheep, the mystery unfolds like a proper whodunit. There is a genuinely touching death scene towards the end. This is one of those films that grows on you as it progresses, ending on a high.
Among the range of emotions the film explores, the strongest is compassion — and it quietly poses the question: if we cannot show compassion towards innocent animals, how can we hope to show it towards our fellow
human beings?
