The Sheep Detectives
Director: Kyle Balda
Cert: PG
Genre: Family
Starring: 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
Running Time: 1 hr 50 mins
The Sheep Detectives, a family-friendly whodunit that marries pastoral whimsy with unexpectedly weighty themes, is a rare, woolly beast.
Adapted from Leonie Swann’s detective novel Three Bags Full and directed by Kyle Balda, the film functions as a cosy murder mystery, a witty genre deconstruction and a meditation on loss, all fluffed up as a talking-animal caper. The farmyard hasn’t been this disarming since Babe.
A gentle, vegetarian shepherd, played with easy warmth by Hugh Jackman, entertains his flock with nightly detective stories until, one morning, the flock cannot rouse him. (Yes, they kill off Hugh Jackman.) News of his murder swiftly animates the supposedly sleepy village where he lived.
His sheep, who can’t communicate with humans but fully understand them, decide to solve the crime themselves. After all, they can’t do worse than the bumbling local bobby played by Nicholas Braun.
Leading the charge is Lily, voiced with comic authority by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whose knack for fictional deduction proves somewhat shakier in the real world. And then there’s a bigger obstacle: how can they let the humans know who the killer is?
The film’s bleating heart lies with the CG sheep. Their dawning comprehension of death, previously believed to mean turning into clouds, gives the story a poignant Watership Down sensitivity without traumatising younger viewers. A revealing visit to a farm from whence animals do not return compounds the reality check.
Bryan Cranston lends gravitas to a brooding outsider ram, while Chris O’Dowd’s memory-burdened merino, Mopple, brings a lilting melancholy and rumination on the cost of forgetting and communal mythmaking.
Ironically, the human characters, including Emma Thompson’s acid-tongued lawyer, are more broadly drawn than their animal counterparts. That tomfoolery provides an important counterweight in an affecting children’s film as unafraid to confront mortality as it is to revel in the sight of a plump sheep stuck in a tyre swing.
In cinemas from Friday, May 8th