Adapting the graphic novel is oddly rare in a time when super hero movies are all the rage. We’ve had Persepolis in 2007, A History of Violence in 2005, Ghost World in 2001, among others. But considering that so much of what we’re seeing rake in millions at the box office, the illustrated novel is less common than one might expect. At least now, under the production of Point Grey Pictures, the Canadian production company founded by writing and directing duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg we get Tangles, a story of a young woman’s autobiographical journey to managing a career in the arts, while juggling her ailing Alzheimer stricken mother.
If there’s something about that sentence that feels a little too awards baity, that’s probably because the concept kind of is. But the way in which it is handled is nothing short of extraordinary. We meet Sarah Leavitt (Abbi Jacobson), a young queer artist working as a front desk clerk for a counter culture queer magazine in San Francisco in the late 90s. She’s moved from Maine to northern California to find her way and make her mark. When she travels home however she sees that her mom Midge (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has been let go from work and is increasingly agitated. Her father Rob (Bryan Cranston) doesn’t take it too seriously, her sister Hannah (Beanie Feldstein) is too busy living her life to worry about it. And Midge’s siters Debbie (Pamela Adlon) and Sukey (Sarah Silverman) are too conflict averse to get the ball moving on any kind of dianosis. Meanwhile Sarah heads back to San Francisco finding success making covers at the magazine she works at and falling in love with a young woman named Donimo. As she feels a sense of calm in her day to day she realizes that her mother’s illness is more real than she had guessed after Midge is diagnosed with Alzheimers.
The film is largely about the slow and unrelentingly impersonal touches of the Alzheimers disease, and while these “big weepy” swings often feel strictly like an exercise in launching emotional tactical nukes, this one’s structure is so lived in it’s important to pay attention to. The infighting of family members, the delaying of personal goals, the gut wrench of a family member that doesn’t recognize you. It’s all packed in there, and amidst all that are the light moments. The little bits of laughter that happen even among the trauma and the loss. Seth Rogen pops in as a hapless partner to Sarah’s sister, and he breaks the tension better than anyone ever could. It’s obvious this experience is something that writer Sarah Leavitt will never forget, and the animation team that brings her graphic novel to life worked painstakingly to fill it with style as well as substance. The film is stylized much like the original graphic novel, and the look gives it that late aughts hip comic feel to it. Very reminscient of the earlier mentioned Persepolis, or Maus, or From Hell. A solid bunch of names to be compared to for sure.
It would be easy for a movie like this to peel away from the misery of Alzheimers, or to even write in a lie. Try to stem the pain of this real life event by giving the audience a moment of recognition, or hiding away some of the darker moods that Midge goes through. But every moment is animated and brought to life in ways that make us laugh, and ways that make us cry. It may seem like Oscar bait at first glance, but the execution is far and away more than any award could bring to the surface.
4.5/5
