I’ll Be Seeing Ewe
Main Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hugh Jackman
Director: Kyle Balda
At long last, I have been released from the sanitarium here in Puerto Vallarta to make my way back to Los Angeles and my sanctuary of Condo Maine. I had a car pick me up and drive me to the airport, but, when I got there, I was unable to board an LA bound flight as I had no passport with me, having lost it in the wreck of my yacht. Despite being a world-famous star whose face is known to absolutely everyone, I was told I would not be permitted to enter the United States without appropriate identification just in case I was trying to sneak in. I was appalled and immediately got on the phone to the US embassy in Mexico City. After an enormous number of clicks through a phone tree, I finally connected to a live person with a very thick accent. I’m not completely sure what her instructions were but they were something about race for the border and await further instructions. I headed back to my rented town car and told the driver that the next stop was to be Tijuana. Mexico is not a big country so I figured it would not be more than a pleasant afternoon’s drive.
I settled myself into the fine Corinthian leather of the backseat, looked around and realized that there was no bar, so had the driver pull over at the first cantina we passed so I could get a pitcher of margaritas to go and then stopped at the mercado next door where I was able to find a number of faux furs in exciting colors in which I could make a little nest for a more comfortable travel experience. Then I got out my new iPad tablet, a parting gift from the sanitarium for my having arranged some impromptu concerts of song and dance for the other patients while I was recovering from my burns and broken ribs, providing inspiration and healing magic to all. The cell service was a bit spotty but I was able to connect to my Amazon Prime account and, when scrolling through the offerings, stumbled across the film The Sheep Detectives from earlier this year, which is relatively new to streaming. When I saw that Hugh Jackman starred at his most grizzled charming, I knew that this would be worth a view so I snuggled in to enjoy.
The Sheep Detectives is a piece of peculiarly British whimsey of the Paddington school of British children’s humor. Enough silly knockabout hijinks to keep the children entertained with a whole other level of plot and theme to keep the parents from falling asleep or scrolling through their phones. Hugh Jackman plays George Hardy, a modern shepherd who lives in an Airstream trailer on the edge of a lovely meadow and who much prefers the company of his sheep to the humans in his life in the nearby town of Denbrook. I cannot help but think that that choice of surname is most deliberate as we are most definitely in the same rural England that hosted the novels of Thomas Hardy a century or so ago.
George gathers his flock every evening and reads aloud to them from British cozy mysteries of the Agatha Christie/Dorothy Sayers/Ngaio Marsh type. Unbeknownst to him, his sheep understand English and try to figure out whodunnit along with him with Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), much the cleverest of the sheep, often coming up with the correct solution prior to the book’s reveal. Twenty minutes into the film, George mysteriously dies (was it murder?) and the various sheep take it upon themselves to solve the crime as the local policeman (Nicholas Braun) appears too dimwitted to put the pieces together.
Soon we have a cast of sheep, highly individual but full of sheep behavior, running around the town of Denbrook and peering into windows and trying to pick up the clues as the human suspects are gathered by George’s lawyer (Emma Thompson looking sensational as a naturally aging woman with grey hair) for the reading of the will and various motives are uncovered. Was it the butcher (Conleth Hill) who wants to turn the flock into lamb chops? Is it the rival shepherd (Tosin Cole) who wants George’s field and flock for himself? And what about the mysterious stranger (Molly Gordon) who has just arrived in town and has a hitherto unknown connection to George. Meanwhile a cub reporter from the local paper (Nicholas Galitzine) is running around trying to get a scoop so he can impress his bosses. Will the truth be uncovered? Will the sheep help solve the mystery? Will the runt of the flock, the winter lamb, find love and acceptance? You know the answers to those questions before the film even starts.
The charm of The Sheep Detectives comes from two directions. First, the human cast are absolutely committed to the somewhat heightened reality and ridiculous British mystery tropes that the film calls for. Given the nature of the film with all of the CGI sheep doing both sheep-like and very unsheep-like things, it can’t have been easy to put some of the scenes together, but the cast is full of incredibly skilled actors which make even the more ridiculous moments work. Jackman does charming better than most other actors alive so he quickly brings us into the story and the world and even though he is offed quickly, he continues to dominate the rest of the film through flashbacks and cameo appearances. Emma Thompson is nearly his match. In her brightly colored power suit, she swaggers and bullies her way through her scenes leaving the supporting cast running to catch up. For the most part they succeed (although I found Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as the local vicar a bit of a weak link).
Secondly, there’s the technical marvel of the sheep, predominantly rendered by CGI and fitting perfectly into the real environment of the paddocks and town squares of a small English country village. The voice cast are all perfectly chosen and range from Brett Goldstein as a pair of twin rams that like nothing better than bashing things with their horns and skulls to Bryan Cranston as the wise and self-sacrificing ram to Regina Hall as a dippy ewe diva. Even Larraine Newman as a brief sheep cameo. While the sheep are busy doing things that sheep would never do such as creating sheep pyramids to peek in high windows, their movements and general physical behaviors remain sheeplike throughout. Each sheep personality is beautifully rendered physically and by voice and we’re just as interested in them as characters as we are the humans.
Kyle Balda, of Minions fame, directs working from a script by Craig Mazin. Mr. Balda has a long background in animation, but he seems to have found the right formula for marrying animation and live action into a seamless whole. The Sheep Detectives is definitely worth a view and it’s fine when the kids need distraction on a rainy day. I plan on watching it again to see if there’s any little detailing I missed the first time around.
Orf references. Blue and yellow paint. Pillowcase over the eyes. Gratuitous French speaking sheep. Roll of banknotes. Cheesy cultural festival. Spring lambs springing. Gratuitous fear of pavement. Sign in the clouds.
Originally from Seattle Washington, land of mist, coffee and flying salmon, Mrs. Norman Maine sprang to life, full grown like Athena, from Andy’s head during a difficult period of life shortly after his relocation to Alabama.
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