LEAH NELSON | CANADA, USA | 2026 | 102 MIN | ENGLISH
Just as Sarah is beginning to build an adult life of her own, her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis forces her to navigate caregiving, duty, and the slow grief of losing someone still beside her.
When her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, San Francisco artist and activist Sarah is pulled back to the conservative Maine town she once left behind. Moving between coasts, she tries to maintain a budding relationship, career ambitions, and the life she has built while helping her family navigate the increasingly demanding work of caregiving. Adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir, Tangles marks director Leah Nelson’s accomplished feature debut. Its hand-drawn, primarily black-and-white animation transforms Sarah’s fear, frustration, grief, and changing relationship with her mother into vivid visual metaphors, moving freely between everyday family life and more surreal expressions of memory and loss. Unexpected humor cuts through the exhaustion and heartbreak without softening the realities of Alzheimer’s. Featuring the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Abbi Jacobson, and Seth Rogen, the film follows a family learning to process a loss that unfolds gradually, even as the person they love remains beside them. Intimate and deeply relatable, Tangles asks what keeps us connected when shared memories begin to disappear and how we learn to grieve someone who is still here.
Cast:Â Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Abbi Jacobson, Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein
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