Let the sheep (detectives) heal your ills
I have never enjoyed reality TV.
This is not a flex. I’m not trying to virtue signal or pull rank. Some of the smartest people I know are addicted to Love Island and The Real Housewives of wherever. I have tried, over the years, to succumb to its purported allure, but it seems that that particular avenue of comfort is cut off from me. Recently, though, I have found an alternative. The Sheep Detectives is a PG mystery about talking sheep, and it just might heal us all.
Imagine, if you will, an improbably sunny hillside in England where the grass is green, the natural light is always flattering, and Hugh Jackman wields a staff and a good novel. Before him is a flock of sheep, diverse in their colours, coats, and mannerisms. In the evenings, he reads them mystery novels out loud, knowing that, while they don’t understand the words he’s saying, they do seem to enjoy the ritual. But they do understand, of course, and when a person is killed, it’s up to the sheep to draw from all the mystery novels they’ve ever listened to and solve the murder.
This movie, helmed by Minions director Kyle Balda and scripted, somehow, by Craig Mazin, whose previous efforts include such tender comedies as Chernobyl and The Last of Us, is akin to a Knives Out mystery that takes place in the Babe universe. The human characters are alternately flamboyant, bumbling, and evil, played by such Hollywood stars as Emma Thompson, Molly Gordon, and Nicholas Braun (of Succession fame). The CGI animals are smart, sassy, and soulful, voiced by A-listers including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brian Cranston, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, and Bella Ramsey. Together, they create one of those cosy whodunnits that have been working for over a century, with a caveat or two.
If you, like me, go into this movie with the type of trepidation and self-consciousness that any adult watching a kids’ movie alone would have, fear not. I was put at ease the moment the MGM lion’s usual roar was replaced by a bleat. The comedy in The Sheep Detectives will hit you wherever you are.
There are visual gags that are never explained, like the fact that there’s a store in the village that advertises discount neon signs for locals and therefore all the local establishments, including the police station, have dive bar signage. There is Nicholas Braun’s Greg-coded performance as an inept but very eager police officer whose car is so tiny that he has to wedge himself in. And there is the line delivery of the voice cast, who provide just as much comedy chops as they do star power.
There’s Lily, a cinnamon-coloured sheep voiced by Louis-Dreyfus, whose intelligence and persistence drive both sheep and humans to examine the murder more closely. There’s Sebastian, an enormous charcoal-coloured ram voiced by Cranston, who has a dark past and a tendency to wander. And there’s Mopple, a shaggy merino whose haplessness belies his wisdom. In their pursuit of the truth, they learn to cross roads, eavesdrop on will readings, and even leave some pivotal clues near a jail cell. As a mystery, it works, but it’s more than that.
The first thing you might notice about the film is how quickly the CGI-ness of it all becomes irrelevant. Why is it that Marvel movies, which also feature more CGI than live action, feel so soulless when a movie about sheep feels so moving? After the first few minutes, you forget that the sheep are made of ones and zeroes. I barely had enough time to wonder why George Lucas hadn’t added more sheep to Star Wars before I was under an anaesthetic haze of goodwill.
Perhaps it’s because the stakes are so believable. In a Marvel movie, you know the superheroes are never really dead because that would prevent the studio from cashing in on the IP. That’s why they trotted out the multiverse, after all. In The Sheep Detectives, the stakes are death, and death is final. That might sound harsh for a kids’ film, but everyone has to come to terms with mortality at some point.
Why not do it within the safe space of a warmhearted movie in which everything will be OK in the end, even death? It’s not as if adults are good at talking about or accepting death either. In that sense, the way that this movie gently but firmly deals with the inevitable end of us all is quietly momentous. You don’t have to be a child to feel uncomfortable and comforted by it.
The Sheep Detectives is a movie that intends to follow through with what it starts, whether that’s a murder mystery or the proverbial can of worms that is mortality. There is even a through-line about discrimination that is almost guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye. Marvel movies, and others like them, use CGI to deliver empty spectacle. The Sheep Detectives uses CGI to tell a character-driven story whose fantastical nature helps ease the hard truths that it digs into.
Most children’s movies avoid thorniness and philosophising, which is what made Inside Out so refreshing. It’s been more than a decade since that film was released, and we finally have a worthy successor that touches on the big stuff without being preachy or maudlin. I’m guessing this is not the sort of catharsis that people find in reality TV dating shows or true crime documentaries, but it does serve a similar function by allowing you to switch your brain off and let go of pretension. The main difference is that you might find yourself feeling downright enriched by the end of it.
