Directed by Kyle Balda | Written by Craig Mazin, based on a novel by Leonie Swann | 109 min | ▲▲▲1/2 | Prime
The thing about this film that boggles the mind is this fact: one of the talents behind this talking animal movie, Craig Mazin, is also the creator of the bleak but powerfully emotional series The Last of Us and Chernobyl. This is a real left turn, genre-wise. But this charming whodunnit has deep and dark themes, much like Babe: Pig In The City, which might be the most heart-rending movie of this sort I’ve seen. That’s about as flattering a comparison as I can make.
Also surprising in an entirely different way is how rapidly this film — which was well-received in its theatrical run — showed up on streaming.
George (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd somewhere in rural England, and he loves his flock. He’s named each of the sheep and in the evenings he likes to read to them, usually detective novels. One morning he’s found dead, and naturally there’s a group of folks in the nearby village who might have motive to kill him.
Most compelling among the humans is Game of Thrones veteran Conleth Hill as a butcher named Ham, Hong Chau doing a solid English accent as the innkeeper, Beth, Nicholas Braun as a member of the local constabulary, Tim, Molly Gordon as George’s daughter, Rebecca, and Emma Thompson as a solicitor, Lydia. The sheep cast is also impressive, including the voices of Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Regina Hall, Bella Ramsey, Patrick Stewart, Chris O’Dowd, and Brett Goldstein as twin rams.
The sheep do their best to understand George’s death, and then, using the skills they’ve picked up from all the books he read to them, solve the murder, led by Lily (Louis-Dreyfus), the smartest of the flock. But beyond their lack of experience with death, they also have a tendency to forget the icky things in life. Quite a gift to be able to do that, though not every sheep has that ability. They also believe when sheep expire they become clouds in the sky. The film takes time to construct the rules of sheep society and their systems of belief, including a strong prejudice against lambs born in winter.
Beyond that, I won’t say much more — the substantial joy of this picture is the unravelling of the murder mystery and the light comedy around the sheep as they discover uncomfortable truths about life. It should go without saying that for this film to work the CGI sheep have to be entirely convincing, which they are.
Finally, one more compliment to bleat at this movie: The Sheep Detectives compares favourably with Rian Johnson’s recent Knives Out picture in the rural murder conspiracy stakes.
