Kyle Balda’s The Sheep Detectives delivers on the promise of its title. Based on Leonie Swann's 2005 novel Three Bags Full, the film is a detective story in which a flock of sheep sets out to solve a murder. Craig Mazin’s thoughtful screenplay delivers a steady mix of humor, heart, and surprises. However, the biggest surprise of all is how much emotional depth is hidden beneath all that wool.

Every year, it feels as though we’re bombarded with a never-ending onslaught of formulaic musical biopics, ones that hit every beat that Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story brilliantly skewered years ago. The formula has grown stale, and audience enjoyment of those films largely hinges on how much they care about the artist they depict, but it’s not as simple as someone being a Bruce Springsteen fan and automatically adoring Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. It works both ways. For example, my love of Queen’s music intensified my hatred for Bohemian Rhapsody, while my appreciation for Bob Dylan’s work made A Complete Unknown feel more gratifying than it probably should have been. With that said, I walked into Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue with a completely open mind because I’m indifferent toward Neil Diamond’s music. All I could hope for was that this wouldn’t be another dull, by-the-numbers musical biopic. What I got instead was an oddly charming, riveting, and refreshingly unpredictable film.