Review | ‘The Sheep Detectives’ is shear brilliance
Collage by Riley LeBlanc, Photographer
“The Sheep Detectives” feels like a fake movie.
The absurd concept based on Leonie Swann’s book, “Three Bags Full,” features an all-star cast of talking sheep solving the mystery of their shepherd’s (Hugh Jackman) murder. On the surface, it seemed to be your run-of-the-mill family film with five seconds of fame before fading into obscurity; that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’ve been in a borderline unhealthy relationship with this film for the past few months. In a state of bemusement regarding what it would end up looking like, my initial intrigue in “The Sheep Detectives” was completely ironic. For anyone else who first saw the trailer earlier this year, that’s likely to be the case.
Yet, now that I’ve seen it, I’m delighted to say that “The Sheep Detectives” is one of the most innovative and poignant family films of the past decade. The film didn’t just win me over with its whimsy, it stole my heart and wrapped it in a warm wool blanket.
Treating its audience seriously and not talking down to them, the film has something to offer for all ages, all while, of course, being a ridiculously fun murder mystery featuring talking sheep. When most children’s media today is filled with pandering themes and what feels like AI slop, a film as emotionally intelligent and reflective as “The Sheep Detectives” is refreshing.
With a stellar cast, the central murder mystery was genuinely surprising. Through several twists and turns, “The Sheep Detectives” went beyond the predictable plot I had feared it might have. For a family movie, this lack of predictability or familiarity is essential to fostering critical thinking. While sheep are so often used to denote those that can’t think for themselves, this is a film that ushers in an embrace of originality.
It’s not always groundbreaking for the genre, but everything is approached with such levity that the film feels uniquely alive in a way that’s hard to come by in Hollywood’s modern landscape.
Yet, perhaps the biggest wonder of “The Sheep Detectives” comes from the masterful tonal balancing act in Craig Mazin’s script. From the writer behind “Chernobyl” and “The Last of Us,” a story like this initially feels like a peculiar choice. Yet, through every moment and beat of “The Sheep Detectives,” Mazin’s same sense of care in stories of nuclear fallout and zombie apocalypses has been applied to a sheep murder mystery.
Even through its absurdities and talking sheep, I was filled with a deep sense of empathy throughout “The Sheep Detectives,” most notably in the film’s approach to grief.
Without getting into spoilers, a key plot point involves the sheep purposefully repressing the memory of sheep who have died. While death is typically a taboo topic to approach in family media, “The Sheep Detectives” isn’t afraid to show a dead body on screen or confront head-on the tumultuous ups and downs of processing grief.
Themes like this are undeniably important for younger audiences, but I feel there’s a lot for adults to take away as well. In my screening, while the theater was filled with children giggling at the sheep’s shenanigans, by the end, there wasn’t a dry eye among the adults in the audience.
One of the most charming aspects was the character of the Winter Lamb (Tommy Birchall). Approaching the ostracization of this lamb within the sheep community, there are powerful messages of inclusivity wrapped in all of this. While a lot of this seems trivial on paper, I truly can’t emphasize enough how delicately these important themes were approached.
As the “Paddington” trilogy has garnered a niche fanbase of young adults, I can only hope “The Sheep Detectives” finds a similar audience. This has a similar sense of family-friendly whimsy tangled up in broader social themes that feel relevant to adult life. Especially as a young adult, the style of these films transports me back to that magical feeling of being a kid, amazed by the spectacle of seeing the silver screen for the first time, again.
While it’s easy to shrug off family media, it's this precise sense of awe and wonder that adult audiences have to take away from movies like “The Sheep Detectives.” It sounds cheesy, but the sheep's optimistic perseverance in their detective work is an attitude I aspire to carry into my day-to-day life.
College struggles can often lead to a sense of doom and gloom, but the radiant positivity of “The Sheep Detectives” might be just what we all need. With great comedy and an even better approach to themes of community and humanism, there’s truly something in “The Sheep Detectives” for everyone.
While I feared this might have been baaaa’d, “The Sheep Detectives” is sure to have you flocked in from beginning to end.
