Dementia has been palpably rendered on film a number of times this century, in varying tones and cadences. Michael Haneke’s wrenching Amour handles the subject with austere dispassion. Gaspar Noé’s Vortex amps up the stress to contrast the quiet and emptiness left in death’s wake. Florian Zeller artfully renders the near horror-movie disorientation of an afflicted man in The Father. And now the topic is addressed in an animated film, Tangles, about a daughter putting romance and career on pause to tend to her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother.
Adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s 2010 graphic memoir, Tangles tells the story of Leavitt’s burgeoning life as a twenty-something in San Francisco — she has a promising illustrator job at a hip, queer alt-weekly and a sexy new love interest — suddenly interrupted by bad news from home. On a visit back to Maine, Sarah notices that her mother, Midge, is acting strangely. She’s moody, erratic, unfocused. Sarah’s family assumes it’s the onset of menopause, but Sarah suspects something far worse might be to blame.
Tangles
The Bottom Line
A lovingly rendered family story.
