Shot in Turners Falls, Western Massachusetts, “Sheepdog” (2024) focuses on combat veteran Calvin Cole (Steven Grayhm, who also wrote and directed) over the course of sixty days of court mandated rehab and therapy over his substance use and anger issues. Meanwhile after thirty years, Whitney St. Germain (Vondie Curtis-Hall), who served in Vietnam, is released from the US Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas. Stripped of his veteran status because of a criminal offense, he is trying to adjust to life outside. Will they find a way to overcome the trauma of the past?

With one exception , the ensemble cast is so affable that it is hard to reconcile what the characters say about each other’s inappropriate behavior with what is being shown on screen after the first act. Cole is always shown with a drink in his hand regardless of the time of day or location, which includes getting in his car to drive home after work. His ex-wife, Alice (Lilli Cooper), points out that he never talks to her anymore, but that does not get shown. What does get shown are two explosive outbursts, but overall, he is framed as a girl dad/ girl uncle, favoring pink, and enthusiastically playing with kids. Darryl Sparks (Matt Dallas), Calvin’s best friend and fellow vet, has a daughter, Taylor Sparks (Rhys Olivia Cote), who refers to Calvin as her uncle. Flashbacks gradually reveal why Calvin is no longer in contact with his daughters, Sydney (Nathalie Sepulveda), nicknamed Squid, and Isabella, nicknamed Izzy (Rose Mallick).

Without the flash of violence, Grayhm maybe could not conceive of what would force Calvin to seek therapy and change course, but it would have been just as powerful if the character simply decided to do it in the face of a new financial stressor. The well-intentioned Grayhm prioritizes the image of the veteran with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries as someone prone to lashing out verbally and physically, which happens, but it unintentionally contributes to public stigma that veterans are more violent than the average person. The stats show that veterans are not more violent than the general public but are at a higher risk of facing criminal consequences than someone who never enlisted. Equally deserving of cinematic portrayal is the veteran who just signs up for therapy or intensive out-patient treatment because they recognize that they feel dysregulated and need to get help, but maybe that will be Grayhm’s next movie. Even though characters may commit bad acts, they are not depicted as bad people or thrown away, which includes the women characters who lose patience with their veteran husbands and call them on their crap. Usually imperfect women are not shown grace, but “Sheepdog” shows them as much understanding as their male counterparts. They are still shown as people who ultimately care but refuse to pour into their husbands at a certain breaking point, which is a late development occurring in all segments of society.  

“Sheepdog” shows how other people help Calvin when he is at a low point and contrasts his experience with Darryl, Calvin’s best friend, and Whitney. Local cop and his former hockey coach, Clarence O’Riordan (Dominic Fumusa), gets Calvin on track and helps him avoid becoming another casualty in the criminal justice system. The court room scene has unexpected moments of humor, and the former coach makes a better lawyer than Calvin’s assigned public defender (Tony V.). The acting veterans, Curtis-Hall and Virginia Madsen, who plays Dr. Elecia Knox, Calvin’s therapist, are Grayhm’s preferred screen partners.

Grayhm prefers dramatic monologues over organic styled dialogues and early verbal confrontations that result in calm. Curtis-Hall and Madsen make it seem natural. Whitney’s story almost felt as if it deserved a separate movie and distracted from the more grounded relationship between Calvin and Darryl. The dynamic of veterans helping each other, especially intergenerational, was terrific, but Whitney’s story gets resolved relatively easier than Calvin considering he has a steeper hill to climb. Whitney would be a Magical Negro in a lesser movie because it is his distilled function, to save Calvin, and the details about how he saves himself from a longer struggle with similar issues and then some remains too minimal other than getting a home and dressing nicely, which could be it. A lot of problems can be solved if poverty was not a factor.

“Sheepdog” is only Grayhm’s second film, and what makes it standout is showing different types of therapy modalities. When people talk about having therapy, people only imagine someone lying on a couch and not looking at the therapist. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is depicted onscreen and reflects how it has the potential to make the patient feel foolish for participating. There are other forms of therapy shown, and sometimes these sessions act as jumping points for the flashbacks. It soon switches to art therapy, but it is only briefly depicted. If more time was devoted to the process than the flashbacks, it would have improved the overall flow. There is also a nice note in the dialogue that Calvin needs to have more sessions than sixty days, which shows maintaining mental health is a project of a lifetime, not a box to check.

Also, while Knox may overstep the bounds of professionalism, she is a real, three-dimensional person with her own bag of rocks. A lot of people think of professionals in a vacuum, not as people who also have financial issues and juggle a lot of responsibilities. Sometimes the story veers too far in her direction, especially the eleventh-hour tension between her and her supervisor, Ms. Hazel (Celeste Oliva), who was otherwise encouraging and the switch up felt sudden when it should have been a more gradual warning system framed as instruction instead of a rebuke.

There were some lovely quotidian moments such as neighbors screaming at each other to break the tension of a serious moment. “Sheepdog” is at its strongest when it does not treat Calvin as if he is auditioning for a slot as a contemporary gender bended Tess of the D’Urbervilles. His interactions with kids are the strongest, and he truly registers as a safe person. When the script decides to torture him, it feels a bit over-the-top and stretches suspension of disbelief. The tragedy that broke the proverbial camel’s back feels Rube Goldbergian and did not make sense as depicted on screen as it unfolded. True stories inspired a lot of the script, but the execution often felt contrived. A lot of new filmmakers act as if each film that they make will be their last, so they overstuff it instead of taking their time to tell one story well.

Grayhm needed to be more restrained instead of starting a lot of storylines then dropping them to favor others instead of seeing them all the way through. The movie starts with a widespread financial crisis, but for Calvin, it gets forgotten pretty early, which is one of the reasons that Darryl’s story is more textured. This really interesting character deserved more screentime He is still raising his daughter. He is dealing with undeserved stigma. He has a substance abuse problem with alcohol. He does not have employment income. He seems functional except a visit to the pawn shop tells another story. His story is less dramatic, but Dallas makes the understated story seem urgent. It would have been nice if he was given more screentime since his plight is more common.

Visually, “Sheepdog” looks great. Massachusetts is at its best in the fall, and even if it was shot during another season, Grayhm nails the aesthetic, especially the opening shots with the brick paper mills next to enormous flowing rivers. The cold clinical blues of bureaucracy gradually get defused with the warmer, homier browns as people’s mental conditions improve. It is one of the rare films that can be classified as a Halloween movie, but the horror is internalized or in the past.

“Sheepdog” is a well-acted, beautifully shot movie that has momentum issues which make it uneven. Its devotion to humanizing instead of villainizing people is laudable, but that devotion would be better served if the drama was not heavy handed to make the characters seek help.