May 14, 2026 11:12am PT

‘Tangles’ Review: Striking Animation Honors an Artist’s Heartbreaking Account of Losing Her Mother to Alzheimer’s

With a starry voice cast including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Abbi Jacobson and Bryan Cranston, Leah Nelson's moving, imaginative adaptation of Sarah Leavitt's graphic memoir makes a thematic necessity of its medium.

Guy Lodge

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Guy Lodge

Film Critic

@guylodge

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The distinctive visual storytelling of Canadian cartoonist Sarah Leavitt is deftly and stylishly transferred to the big screen in “Tangles,” an honestly felt and highly affecting adaptation of her autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. Chronicling with tenderness and idiosyncratic humor her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Leavitt’s memoir has become a touchstone work for many enduring the same cruel rite of passage with their loved ones. Co-written with the author, and largely preserving the text’s visual and narrative singularity, Leah Nelson‘s candid, funny and incrementally heartbreaking adult animated feature — an impressive debut for the helmer — deserves to do the same.

'Tangles' Review: Striking Animation Honors an Artist's Heartbreaking Account of Losing Her Mother to Alzheimer's