Tangles might be the most emotionally resounding and uplifting animated film since Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Based on Sarah Leavitt’s memoir graphic novel of the same name, it was written by Leavitt, Trev Renney, and director Leah Nelson. Along with her talented animators, Nelson takes the more sketch-like style of the graphic novel and gives it full life, with such smoothness of movement and gorgeous lighting that I feel like we get so little of in 2-D animation these days (if we get 2-D animation at all). The fullness of the style feels appropriate for the subject matter, as Tangles follows Sarah (voice of Abbi Jacobson) as her mother Midge (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus) struggles with Alzheimer’s disease, immortalizing her beautifully.
Sarah is a twenty-something lesbian in 1999 discovering herself in San Francisco. When a trip home to small-town Maine yields the surprising revelation that her mother is starting to go downhill mentally and experiencing mood swings, Sarah tries to lead the charge in taking care of her as the rest of her family deals with it by treating Midge as normally as possible. Both are forms of love, but it takes both sides a minute to learn that. Having gone through the experience of losing my own mother to cancer in my twenties, I really related to that conflict, and also to Sarah’s struggle to define herself outside of her mother’s illness.
The way Tangles balances fear and pure cathartic emotion is brilliant. Many times, Sarah will be directly dealing with the fear of losing her mother or a part of that experience, and the animation style will burst open, adopting a kind of punk/abstract aesthetic, much like Sarah’s drawings in the queer magazine she works for. Another through line explored in these types of scenes is Sarah’s relationship with Donimo (voice of Samira Wiley), who seems to have been the first love of her life. Like Sarah’s conflict with her family, her relationship with Donimo feels very grounded and realistic, and is notable for not following the typical up-and-down trajectory of subplot romances in film.
Tangles is additionally notable for tackling all of these big emotions while also being a genuine laugh riot. The structure of the storytelling helps in this regard, as every time Sarah flies to and from Maine, the pre-flight announcements get more and more specific to her experience. This helps ease us into scenes which balance the film’s huge heart with hilarious family and friend moments. You really start to feel like you’re part of this family, or at least I did. Then, when one character unexpectedly did something so unbelievably sweet and kind for Midge which was also quite funny, the tears which were in my eyes from an earlier scene returned and overflowed. I’m being vague about this scene so as not to spoil it, but you’ll know it when you see it. It’s one of my favorite moments in movies this year because I deeply related to and appreciated the spirit in which the action was taken. It reminded me of kindnesses done for my mom by so many friends and family members when she was sick, kindnesses which she would have never remembered — the purest form of love. | George Napper
Tangles was featured at the 2026 St. Louis International Film Festival. Further information about the festival, which runs Nov. 5-15, is available on the festival website.
