“I have a question,” says Zora (Bella Ramsey) at the first-act turning point in Kyle Balda’s The Sheep Detectives. The Sheep Detectives is a cozy murder mystery, so it’s not surprising that characters have questions. Zora, though, is a curious youngster learning for the first time about human mortality, and her questions go beyond typical whodunit riddles: “What is the meaning of human life, if it can all just end in the blink of an eye? In fact, why are humans here at all? And who made them, and who made us?”
Zora is, of course, a sheep, and The Sheep Detectives is a kind of movie that Hollywood has all but forgotten how to make, if they ever knew. It’s a family film in the best sense, as distinct from a kids’ movie, and the furthest thing from the something-for-everyone approach mainstreamed by Shrek (frenetic pacing, quippy dialogue, slapstick comedy, crude humor, and pop-culture references, all wrapped in a self-aware, ironic sensibility). It’s a generous, sincere tale that doesn’t shy from difficult subject matter and tricky emotional terrain; a parable of inclusion and overcoming prejudice that avoids the easy clichés that often come with that ubiquitous theme.
And, yes, it’s also a murder mystery. Hugh Jackman stars as an easygoing sheep farmer named George, who leads a solitary, peaceful life in a caravan (or mobile home) outside the British village of Denbrook, living cheek by muzzle with a flock who are like friends and family. He has names for them all, and knows their personalities, gifts, and foibles; he even spends quiet evenings reading aloud to them the detective novels that he loves. This is a playful conceit for George, who, like most humans in stories like this, takes for granted that animals are not anthropomorphic and can’t understand English, let alone follow the plot of a novel. Little does George imagine that, in introducing his flock to the conventions of detective fiction, he’s equipping them to solve an actual murder. And, by “them,” I mean mostly Lily (Louis-Dreyfus), the smartest sheep in the flock, and the quickest to solve the “nighttime stories.”
Copyright © 2000– Steven D. Greydanus. All rights reserved.