Grief and Sheep
The Sheep Detectives
I’ve spent a pretty minimal amount of time in my life thinking about how to teach children about death. I learned about it the same way everyone raised Catholic does: via the traumatic murder of Jesus Christ, dramatized in my parish’s Stations of The Cross pageant on Good Friday. This taught me only of death (sort of) and nothing of grief—after three days the black shroud of death melted away to reveal the pastel dyed miracle of a humanity saved.
All that to say, I think if I had to teach a child about death now, I would use The Sheep Detectives rather than Jesus Christ. Directed by Kyle Balda (director of Minions) and written by Craig Mazin (writer of Chernobyl, yes the HBO limited series), The Sheep Detectives is the surprise hit of the year so far. Many people will be fooled by the trailer, which looks like a 30 Rock joke movie: Hugh Jackman, as George the doting shepherd, is murdered and his flock of sheep must figure out who did it because the town’s sole policeman (Nicholas Braun) is a moron. They are, of course, equipped with the skills to do this because George reads them murder mysteries every night before bedtime. If that doesn’t sound like a movie Jenna Maroney gets cast in (as the diva sheep, actually played by Regina Hill), I don’t know what does!
But really, Jenna Maroney would be lucky to be cast in The Sheep Detectives. The movie’s goofiness adds to its depth. The flock has a magical ability to completely suppress the memory of anything they find overwhelming and unpleasant, and thus they are completely unaware of death as something real that can happen outside of their murder mystery bedtime stories. They intend to do the same with George, until a sheep voiced by Bryan Cranston (the literal and figurative black sheep of the flock) forbids them: they owe it to George to remember and to grieve him.
And so, as the flock, led by Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) (the smartest sheep in the world, because who else would she be) embarks on a mission to bring George justice. In doing so they come to terms with death and the love that powers grief.
It is not an exaggeration to say that I wept at multiple points in the movie. I’m not above saying that! The movie very poignantly captures what it feels like to experience true grief for the first time. My personal experience with that sort of grief is that it feels like a complete regression into childhood in the way that nothing makes sense, there is no logic or reason, especially at the beginning stages. You are helplessly tossed about in the waves of sadness and anger and guilt that can accompany tragedy. You might as well be a child. You might as well be a sheep.
Throughout the movie, an additional tragedy strikes the flock, upping the tear factor and bringing the flock even closer together. Sheep are genuinely pretty family oriented animals (with the flock, and all) but loss teaches them not to take each other for granted. They experience the pain of grief but also the beautiful reminder it brings that we must make the active choice to love while we can.
Beautifully written.