By Atsuko Kitayama
TORONTO, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Canadian director Leah Nelson says she was inspired by her family’s experience with Alzheimer’s when making “Tangles,” an animated dark comedy that weaves together heartbreak, humor and love even as memory fades.
The hand-drawn, black-and-white animated film is Nelson’s feature debut and an adaptation of Canadian cartoonist Sarah Leavitt’s graphic-novel memoir “Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me.” The film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival after its Cannes premiere.
Nelson said in an interview she first came across Leavitt’s memoir about 16 years ago, when dementia was affecting her own family, and the story gave her “permission to laugh” during a difficult period in her life.
Told through the eyes of Leavitt’s character, the film follows her and her family as they struggle to adjust to a new reality. In the film, Leavitt is building a life of her own, with a budding career and a new relationship, when her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis upends her world.
“I got kind of stuck on it. I couldn’t let it go at that point,” Nelson told Reuters. “I was determined to try to turn it into a film and share the kind of cathartic experience that I got from reading the story.”
DARK COMEDY AS STORYTELLING TOOL
Nelson turned to dark comedy as a storytelling tool to reflect the reality that humor and heartbreak often coexist even in life’s darkest moments, making the genre well-suited to exploring the complexities of dementia and family dynamics.
“You can have moments that are really sad and dark and earnest, and you don’t have to have a joke in there … but we can also have moments of humor,” she said. “And sometimes those are happening at the same time, and that’s, I think, the sweet spot of dark comedy.”
For Nelson, animation was a natural fit because it allowed filmmakers to go “inside the character’s psyche.” In the film, Leavitt, an artist, works through her emotions in her artwork, giving viewers a window into her inner world.
STAR-STUDDED VOICE CAST
The voice cast includes Abbi Jacobson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston and Seth Rogen.
Unlike in many animated productions, some actors recorded together in the same room, allowing for improvisation and helping create natural family dynamics.
“I think it always makes the performance better,” said Jacobson, who voices Leavitt.
Jacobson, whose grandmother had Alzheimer’s, said the subject matter gave her “more pressure in a good way to make sure that I did this story justice.”
Nelson said she hoped caregivers, whether family members or professionals, would see their own lives reflected in the film and feel less alone.
“It’s a love letter to caregivers,” she said.
(Reporting by Atsuko Kitayama in Toronto; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Matthew Lewis)
