THE STORY – On a farm in the English countryside, shepherd George Hardy spends his time reading murder mystery novels to his flock of sheep, pretending that they follow along with the stories. When one morning he is discovered dead – murdered – the sheep go about thinking on how to solve the murder.
THE CAST – Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, Hong Chau & Emma Thompson
THE TEAM – Kyle Balda (Director) & Craig Mazin (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 109 Minutes
Sometimes a film arrives with the lowest of expectations and proceeds to make you feel wonderfully foolish for ever doubting it. “The Sheep Detectives,” directed by Kyle Balda (Director of “Minions,” “Despicable Me 3” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru“) and adapted by Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl” and “The Last Of Us“) from Leonie Swann’s beloved 2005 novel “Three Bags Full,” is exactly that kind of pleasant surprise, a family film filled with warmth, wit, and unexpected emotional depth that earns its laughs as honestly as it earns its tears. From the moment the MGM lion’s roar is replaced by the soft baa of a sheep in the opening title card, this family film asserts itself as cleverly self-aware, and it consistently delivers on that promise throughout its runtime, making it one of the most genuine surprises of the year.
Set in the idyllic English countryside village of Denbrook, the film introduces us to George Hardy (a cheerful Hugh Jackman), an eccentric, gentle-souled shepherd living in his teailer regarded by his neighbors as something of a loner. Each evening as the sun dips below the hills, George reads detective novels aloud to his flock, a ritual the sheep absorb as nightly entertainment. But when George shockingly turns up dead after a stormy night, and a $30 million fortune is uncovered as the apparent motive, a murder mystery begins. The local investigation falls to the bumbling constable Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), while George’s estranged daughter Rebecca (Molly Gordon) returns to town, his quippy lawyer (Emma Thompson) carries out his wishes, and others seek to profit from George’s death. But it is the sheep themselves, led by the resourceful Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who take matters into their own hooves, drawing on everything George ever read to them to identify who among the townsfolk gathered at a will reading had the “means,” the “motive,” and the “opportunity” to commit the crime.
“The Sheep Detectives” can be fairly misjudged at first glance, but what elevates it beyond that initial reading is how well Mazin’s screenplay finds its thematic substance beneath the broadly comic surface. Lily’s use of classic mystery novel tropes is not merely a cute driving force for the narrative, but reveals much about her character and makes her someone worth rooting for as we watch her apply the logic of fiction to the chaos of real-world grief and greed. The entire film has a wonderfully bouncy rhythm, light on its feet in its pacing, music, and cinematography, yet never overly frivolous. But there are also some weighty themes to be discovered here, too. The sheep believe that when someone dies, including themselves, they transform into a cloud. These are characters whose reckoning with mortality becomes an existential crisis, and the film handles it with a delicacy and maturity that many other dramas would envy. It speaks to how children process loss without ever being condescending to them, and how adults often do not fare much better.
There is also a lovely subplot involving the “winter lamb,” a character (adorably voiced by Tommy Birchall) born out of season and, as a result, considered different by the rest of the flock. His dismissal by the others and fight for approval carries a gentle lesson about social acceptance and the danger of underestimating those who do not fit neatly into existing communities. It dovetails beautifully with the film’s central murder mystery, in which nearly every human suspect is guilty of dismissing George when he was alive and of valuing him only after he died for his wealth. That prejudice also includes their underestimation of the sheep, who consider themselves to be stupid simply because humans believe it to be true. The irony, of course, is that the sheep are the only ones paying close enough attention to crack the case and bring justice to George.
Among the voice cast, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a natural as Lily, intelligent, empathetic, and determined. Bryan Cranston brings pure pathos to Sebastian, a brooding black Icelandic Leader sheep with a tragic past as a former carnival animal, whose reluctant partnership with Lily and the rotund Mopple (a perfectly cast Chris O’Dowd) gives the film its most emotionally grounded relationship as he goes on his own character arc that turns out to be one of the film’s more powerful aspects. Patrick Stewart, Regina Hall, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein, pulling double duty as twin Norfolk Horn sheep Reggie and Ronnie that love to smash anything and everything with their horns, round out a talented voice ensemble that makes these characters feel wholly distinct.
The human characters are where “The Sheep Detectives” struggles the most as they’re either underwritten (Tosin Cole as a rival local shepherd and Conleth Hill as the town’s butcher), not utilized enough (Hong Chau as a local woman who had feelings for George), or fall flat all together (Nicholas Galitzine as a reporter from out of town and Gordon). Emma Thompson appears briefly but memorably as George’s lawyer, delivering her few scenes with the kind of effortless comic authority that only she can. However, Nicholas Braun feels miscast as the clumsy local policeman Tim Derry, never quite settling into an English accent that remains audibly uncomfortable throughout, and his scenes alongside Molly Gordon suffer from a near-total absence of chemistry. It is a pairing that the film seems to want us to invest in, and it is the one area where that investment does not work as well as nearly everything else in the film, which is a shame considering a substantial amount of screentime is dedicated to him.
But these are minor complaints against a film that works so much better than its marketing suggests. The CGI, which looked so unconvincing in early trailers, is a far richer experience in its completed form, and crucially, it avoids the uncanny valley photorealism approach that made the 2019 “The Lion King” so emotionally inert. These sheep have faces that communicate, personalities that shine, and performances behind them that give them life. The sequence in which the flock ventures into Denbrook for the first time, tentatively pressing their hooves onto the pavement and cautiously navigating a road crossing, is among the film’s funniest and most charming moments, brought to life by delightful animation and voice performances.
“The Sheep Detectives” closes over the joyful sound of The Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” a choice so perfectly calibrated in its Scottish exuberance that it sends you out on exactly the right note. As many have already stated, this is “Knives Out” meets “Babe” in the best possible sense, heartwarming, funny, and smarter than it has any right to be. It is a family film that respects its audience at every age level, and should have a healthy, fulfilling life for itself.
