Revenge of the smart family film?!?

In which tmatt, in Scotland, asks if Rational Sheep are impressed by Sheep Detective

Seen any sheep lately?

Well, I sure have. There are more sheep in Ireland than there are people. I suspect the stats in Scotland are similar and I KNOW that sheep (and brilliant sheepdogs) rule the Shetland Islands. You can look it up.

However, I am in the worst possible situation to get to view the summer movie that I most want to see — “The Sheep Detectives.” They will not be showing it, anytime soon, on a big screen on this or any other boat. Actually, it might be showing in one of those shopping mall/theme parks that float, the megaships that carry, oh, 7,600 passengers and 2,350 in the crew. Those “icon” titans.

Not my style. I’m looking for the Library (and walking promenade) of the Seas.

Several weeks ago, I asked Rational Sheep readers to consider heading to their local multiplex to see this flick and then, doing part of my job for me, to let me know what they thought of it.

Obviously, you can look at this funny little movie through the family-market lens, alone. That’s valid. Consider this must-read piece at The Free Press: “Wait, Are Kids’ Movies Good Again?” Kat Rosenfield offers this in the overture, speaking to a previous generation of parents and kids:

The year was 1985; the setting, a drive-in theater in upstate New York. The movie on the screen was Steven Spielberg’s E.T., and we had come to the moment—you know the one — where E.T. says goodbye. He places his glowing finger on Elliott’s heart; he croaks, “I’ll be right here”; he ascends to the vessel where his friends are waiting to welcome him home. The music swells, and the spaceship looks like a jewel as it soars away into the night sky, and I—three years old, wearing footed pajamas, high on sugar and the thrill of still being awake hours after my usual bedtime — had never seen anything so cool. The alien! The spaceship! The action! The adventure!

It was just too bad that my parents clearly hadn’t enjoyed the movie very much, seeing as they were both crying.

Such is the magic of the family film: It can move adults of all ages, while delighting any children they may or may not be chaperoning.

Ah, John Williams, John Williams, John Williams and, what doƒ you know, JOHN WILLIAMS in 2026.

Moving on to the sheep movie in question. This next part is long, but helpful:

The Sheep Detectives is just what it sounds like — an English mystery story à la Midsomer Murders, except that the detectives are, well, you know. … The cast includes Nicholas Braun, Emma Thompson, and Hugh Jackman, who plays the slain shepherd whose murder the sheep are trying to solve; the sheep are voiced by major stars including Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Bryan Cranston. Shot on location in the bucolic English countryside, the film is entirely live-action save for the sheep, which are either pure CGI or, occasionally, physical puppets later enhanced with AI.

The result is less uncanny valley than alternate universe, not unlike the world of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in which real people coexist alongside cartoon characters; you know in your heart that this is all make-believe, but man, it feels real. …

And in a world where so many movies work by taking a childish, unsophisticated thing and dressing it up in slightly more adult clothing, this is the inverse: an inherently grown-up story, one with a heart, but in a package that kids can also enjoy.

Now, in terms of a discussion of life, worldviews and morality, this next section by Rosenfield is top notch. Back in my Denver Seminary teaching days, I would have said this movie may have “signal” potential for preaching or a youth-parent event.

Now, in a Rational Sheep context, I would say precisely the same thing. Thus, Rosenfield proclaims (bold type added by moi):

In the course of their investigation, the sheep ruminate not just on the identity of the killer but their memories of the victim, the intersection of their lives with his, their uncertainty upon losing the man who fed them, sheltered them, and gave structure to their days. Like the most iconic nonhuman characters — as in The Velveteen Rabbit, or the golden retriever in The Art of Racing in the Rain — they observe the contours of human life, love, and loss: uncomprehendingly at first, but with glimmers of an understanding that will someday take hold, and in doing so, spell the end of their innocence.

In other words, they see the world as children do, and this is not an accident.

This beautifully illuminates the difference between the adult who sees stories as a vehicle for healing his own inner child, and the one who understands intuitively, deeply, tenderly, that children occupy the same world we do while being blissfully and often heartbreakingly unconscious of how cruel that world can be.

Discuss. Yes or no? And remember, that’s a “secular” take!

Now, over at the must-bookmark 100 Movies that Every Catholic Should See website, Joe Wilson is willing to go further. By the time he hit the theater exit door:

… I had to sheepishly admit that it was one of the most fun, heart-warming, and genuine films of the year. … It has lots of laughs, some surprisingly Christian allusions and visual imagery, endearing characters, and an earnest sweetness that has been long-absent from cinemas. It’s a cozy mystery the whole family can enjoy, a thoroughly good time at the movies. It might be hard to baa-lieve, but in this writer’s opinion The Sheep Detectives is one of the year’s best so far.

Wait, you mean that good shepherd may, in some way, be a kind of symbolic nod to the Good Shepherd? Let’s keep reading:

Hugh Jackman’s George … radiates peace and love, showing a gentle side to his sheep and his friends while possessing a quiet strength and even righteous anger in certain situations. He’s been beat down by the world and yet is a beacon of goodness, tending to his flock and searching for his two lost children, given up for adoption years ago. His warm, loving presence and the composition of certain shots inevitably bring to mind depictions of Christ, the Good Shepherd, in a way that cannot have been unintentional on the part of the filmmakers. Indeed, there is a brief theological discourse (muddled by the sheep’s inability to understand metaphors) that makes an explicit allusion to the Good Shepherd. I hesitate to mine too deeply into The Sheep Detectives for grand theological insights, but the imagery is there and George is indeed in many ways a Christlike figure.

Then, for those wondering:

The film is also incredibly family friendly. It is thoroughly clean, devoid of the sort of potty humor that unfortunately seems to dominate “kids” movies these days. There is, of course, a murder, but there is minimal violence, no language, no sexual content, not so much as a fart joke. Between this, Solo Mio, and Project Hail Mary,¹ 2026 is shaping up to be a great year for clean, family-friendly films.

If you still need a push, check out the very first thing that my friend Deacon Steven D. Greydanus offers in his review — “‘Babe’ meets ‘Knives Out’ in delightful, well-made ‘The Sheep Detectives’” — published at The Catholic Spirit:

“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. …

Need more to whet your appetite?

Jumping way down in Greydanus’ essay (you need to read it), there is more. I have left out some material to avoid some, moral and theological spoilers:

“The Sheep Detectives” is … partly about the necessity of facing hard realities: about not suppressing painful memories, or pretending that traumatic events didn’t happen. It’s also about recognizing that some of the comforting beliefs we grew up with may not be as true as we thought. The movie is not, though, a debunking of faith or hope.

For one thing, there’s an intimation, as a noble character faces death, that death may mean reunion with loved ones — a moment visually underscored by a faint beam of light from the sky. There are also moments of magical realism that matter-of-factly present the ongoing reality of loved ones. …

[W]hile the movie never directly answers Zora’s questions about the meaning of human existence and who created humans or sheep, I appreciate that the questions are asked, and that the movie at least obliquely acknowledges the existence of attempts to answer these questions among humans. As the central trio of sheep pass a church, Sebastian explains that “someone called God” lives there. His attempts to explain who God is from snatches of human conversation are simultaneously ridiculous and partly profound. What a welcome contrast to the institutional secularity of Disney and most Hollywood animation houses, which scrub virtually all acknowledgment of the very existence of religion from their movies.

So, if you have not seen this flick, grab a notepad (plain white is easier to see in a dark theater) and get going.

Then comment. Needless to say, I hope to read your thought and then dialogue with them when I return home from, you know, the islands full of sheep.