‘Tangles’: Director Leah Nelson & Producer Lauren Miller Rogen On The “Delicate Nature” Of Bringing Alzheimer’s To Screen In Animated Feature — Cannes

Director Leah Nelson makes her animated feature debut with "Tangles," an adaptation of Sarah Leavitt's graphic memoir that premiered at Cannes. Producer Lauren Miller Rogen joined Nelson on the project, which explores Alzheimer's disease through the lens of Leavitt's personal experience with her mother's decline.

The graphic memoir, published in 2010, presents Leavitt's intimate account of watching her mother deteriorate from the degenerative neurological disease. Nelson and Miller Rogen both connected with the source material on a personal level, recognizing the emotional weight of translating such a delicate subject to animation.

The choice to adapt Leavitt's work as an animated feature rather than a live-action film allows Nelson to approach the material with visual metaphor and abstraction. Animation permits the filmmakers to externalize internal experiences, memory loss, and emotional states in ways live-action cinema cannot easily achieve. The format offers distance and poetry simultaneously, allowing viewers to process difficult subject matter without the intensity of photorealism.

Miller Rogen's involvement brings commercial and creative credibility to the project. As a producer known for her work on projects addressing serious social issues, her participation signals the filmmakers' commitment to treating Alzheimer's with the complexity and respect it deserves.

The Cannes premiere places "Tangles" within the festival's tradition of recognizing films that tackle human vulnerability and family relationships. Adult animation addressing healthcare and mortality remains relatively rare in feature film production, making Nelson's directorial choice noteworthy within the animation industry.

The film's journey from graphic memoir to animated screen reflects broader trends in literary adaptation, where publishers increasingly option graphic novels for film and television. Leavitt's work joins a growing category of autobiographical graphic literature exploring illness and caregiving, alongside titles like "Footnotes in Gaza" and "Persepolis."