At The Movies with James Phelan: The Sheep Detectives
This warm, if idealised, take on country living clearly wants to tap into a rich lineage of films running from ‘Babe’ right up to ‘Paddington’ and ‘Peter Rabbit’.
If you wanted to confirm that this family-friendly film was in the realm of pure fiction, informed viewers (like anyone working in agriculture) will have to believe in a world where sheep farmer George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) is raising his flock only for their wool.
Vegetarian George apparently makes enough of a living to perch himself in a trailer at the top of a steep meadow where he is a vigilant shepherd who knows every sheep in his care by name.
Precarious livelihood aside, there is further fiction at play here too. Because every night, George reads murder mystery novels aloud to his herd. It’s George’s favourite literary genre but he wrongly believes that the ‘who-done-its’ are going completely over the heads of his oblivious animals.
He doesn’t know that every chapter cliffhanger and the central mysteries of these books are a source of heated debate and intense speculation within his enraptured flock. Their continuous exposure to detective novels means the inquisitive sheep are the ideal candidates to investigate when their beloved owner is unceremoniously bumped off.
They certainly have more of a clue than the local brainless cop, who they rightly suspect is out of his depth. Speaking of suspects, there are plenty of those as potential inheritors competitively converge when it emerges that George was secretly a lot richer than his humble lifestyle suggested.
Based on the novel, ‘Three Bags Full’ by Leonie Swann, this warm, if idealised, take on country living clearly also wants to tap into a rich lineage of films running from ‘Babe’ right up to ‘Paddington’ and ‘Peter Rabbit’. The photo realistic sheep look amazing and the special effects are indeed special! In that we never notice them at all.
In fairness, the British movie industry caters for this family film market very well. It would be wise of Irish filmmakers to target the same lucrative niche. International audiences are as likely to find a kid-friendly movie set in the Irish countryside just as attractive as those done by our British counterparts.
On the cast side, it’s a pretty sweet gig for Hugh Jackman, who doesn’t have to hang around for long. Emma Thompson fills that star vacuum quickly as a sharply dressed and sharply tongued solicitor, while the vocal cast boasts big names like Bryan Cranston (‘Breaking Bad’) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (‘Veep’). Irish actor Chris O'Dowd supplies his recognisable voice to the pick of the woolpack as a sheep cursed with a photographic memory.
Overall, this is a really fun frolic for kids of all ages. A film that savours pulling the wool over our eyes. In the end, it is shear class! Ewe herd it here first!
