Tangles                 4 ½ stars

I continued my viewing of new movies at The Chicago International Film Festival with the animated movie, Tangles, by director Leah Nelson. It is based on an illustrated memoir by Sarah Leavitt in which she tells her personal story of dealing with her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. The images are done as hand drawings in black and white that gives the movie a dark tone, but the story does include plenty of humor in dealing with this troubling subject. There have been plenty of dramas about Alzheimer’s showing the challenges that loved ones go through in caring for the stricken family member. Those that come to mind are The Father, Still Alice, The Notebook and Away from Her. Tangles uses a lighter approach than these earlier films but has plenty of serious moments. In the story Sarah (Abbi Jacobson) is in her early twenties and just starting a career as an illustrator for a gay weekly in San Francisco, where her boss (Wanda Sykes of The New Adventures of Old Christine) has noticed her dark, sexual drawings. She has just met Donimo (Samira Wiley of Orange Is the New Black), another lesbian with whom she is starting to form a relationship when she takes a trip back home to visit her family. There she finds that her mom (Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld and Veep) is behaving in erratic ways and is unusually irritable. She suspects that something is wrong with her, but her father (Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad) and other family members are not as alarmed by her behavior. Soon Sarah finds herself making more trips back home to care for her mom until the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is made and the family must deal with her condition. All the while Sarah is putting her job and relationship with Donimo on hold. Her frequent visits continue over the years as mom’s condition deteriorates. Through the use of animation Sarah’s feelings of dread and guilt are imaginatively expressed, something not possible in conventional dramas. Scenes connected to the Mexican holiday The Day of the Dead are especially vivid. Other cast members include Seth Rogan, Beanie Feldstein, Sarah Silverman and Bowen Yang. The subject of Alzheimer’s is a tough one to watch in a movie, but I highly recommend Tangles. It would be especially moving for those who have experienced such situations in life. The movie is expected to be in theaters in January.