But somewhere around the end of the 20th century, studios began to use the PG rating almost exclusively for animated films with mature themes (largely Pixar movies). PG came to be associated with children’s fare. Studios stopped putting the rating on films that might otherwise have merited it, like many Marvel films, because they feared teens and adults wouldn’t go see a PG-rated movie. Somehow, that meant a whole genre of entertainment more or less disappeared, too.
Watching “The Sheep Detectives,” I remembered what we’ve been missing. The film is based on the 2005 novel “Three Bags Full” by Leonie Swann. Directed by Kyle Balda from a script by Craig Mazin (who, perhaps improbably, you may know best as one of the creators behind “The Last of Us” and “Chernobyl”), it is the tale of a kindly shepherd named George (Hugh Jackman) who tends to his flock with unusual care. He feeds them, shears them, gives them medicine and knows them each by name. Every night, he reads to them from his mystery novels. They listen attentively. He doesn’t realize quite how attentively.
Then, one day, the sheep discover George lying dead in the field, and decide they must figure out who murdered him. The smartest of the sheep, Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), leads the others in creating a plan, which involves going into the village and identifying who might have had motive to commit the dastardly deed.
This English village boasts the usual cast of colorful characters, among them the local policeman (Nicholas Braun, doing a charmingly nonsensical British accent), the innkeeper (Hong Chau), the priest (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), the butcher (Conleth Hill), a reporter who has recently turned up (Nicholas Galitzine), plus another local shepherd (Tosin Cole) whose flock seems not quite as happy as George’s sheep. And then there is the woman who George has been corresponding with (Molly Gordon), who shows up all of a sudden with her lawyer (Emma Thompson). Hmm.
If this is starting to sound like an Agatha Christie-style mystery, that’s because it is, with all the attendant tropes and clues and twists. This kind of story plays on the reader’s (or viewer’s) expectations of each character, based on their roles in the community and often upends the societal order. Adding sheep to the equation further bolsters this element.