Introduction
The Sheep Detectives isn’t a story about human detectives investigating sheep. It’s about sheep investigating the murder of their human shepherd, George (Hugh Jackman). It’s a silly premise, but it’s exactly the kind of story that gets made into a PG-rated film. The remarkable thing about this film isn’t that a studio greenlit a project about sheep detectives, it’s that the finished film doesn’t treat its target audience – families – as complete idiots.
It could be that this film is smarter than typical family films because the (German) novel it’s based on – Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann – isn’t a children’s book, but a regular adult mystery novel (set in Ireland). I haven’t read the novel, so I can’t speak to its contents. Since the movie doesn’t feature over-the-top absurd characters or poop or fart jokes, I can only assume the book doesn’t have those things either. And I’m very, very glad for that.
Silly Premise
With such a silly premise, it’s easy to assume the movie wouldn’t take itself seriously at all. That’s what I assumed. The preview all but told me to make that assumption. One example is the preview makes Emma Thompson (playing George’s lawyer Lydia Harbottle) come off like every ridiculous family-friendly villain.
That’s not to say she is or isn’t the murderer, but when seen in the full context of the film, Lydia is quite the opposite of ridiculous. In fact, she might be the best non-ovine character in the film, if not the best character altogether. Emma Thompson is taking this movie seriously (while also clearly enjoying herself in this film), as is the rest of the cast and crew.
Discussion
Don’t worry though, there is a little bit of silliness in the film. Once again, the sheep are the detectives. For this to work, a couple of conceits must be made. One conceit is that the sheep have a complete understanding of the entire English language, which they seem to have gotten mostly from George reading them mystery stories every evening. While the humans in the movie still only hear baaaa, the sheep are speaking English for the audience.
Another conceit is that nobody in the town is surprised when sheep are roaming around town or behaving in weirdly human ways. I’ve spent a good amount of time in places where sheep are a significant industry and never once saw sheep wandering around town, let alone inside hotels or pubs. Of course, I’ve never been to Ireland, so maybe sheep are more free there.
A Whodunit
On the serious side, the movie is a straight-forward whodunit. The movie introduces us to George, a bunch of individual sheep, and a handful of locals, and then George dies. The smartest sheep, Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), is convinced that George was murdered and determines that they must find the killer. Much of this revolves around giving hints to various humans, including the town’s only cop, Tim (Nicholas Braun).
Shortly after George’s death, Lydia arrives in town to read the will, which in all mysteries means gathering all of the suspects. Clues and motives are revealed until the killer is finally unmasked. And like all fun mysteries, the clues are such that anybody paying attention can deduce the killer’s identity before the obligatory unmasking in the climax.
Social Themes
The best way to know that the film isn’t pandering to the lowest common denominator is that it sprinkles some fairly heavy social themes into the story and treats them respectfully. The obvious one is life after death, but from a sheep’s perspective. Another good one is dealing with tragedy, though this one comes with an odd detail. The sheep can choose to literally forget things, which I don’t recall being a stereotype of sheep.
Several times in the film, the sheep decide they must forget bad things so they don’t feel sad or other seemingly negative feelings. The forgetting doesn’t play into the main plot, but the issue of coping with life events comes to a head late in the film and is dealt with really well.
Conclusion
I’m as surprised as you that this movie ended up so good and so adult. If you are skeptical because you also saw a preview, I promise you the preview does not do this movie justice. The mystery is fun, Jackman and Thompson give their usual great performances (with an assist from the very likable Braun), and the movie really is good for the entire family. And all on the idea of sheep detectives. Yes, I said sheep.
Rating: Worth your money for the entire family.
The Sheep Detectives opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, May 8.
