Tangles, a new black-and-white animated film about Sarah, a 20-something illustrator battling her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease, was all too real for producers Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen. The couple began dating more than 20 years ago after Miller-Rogen’s mother, Adele, was showing signs of a disease that would afflict her for the last 16 years of her life.
“There were so many similarities between my family and Sarah’s family,” Miller-Rogen said, sitting in her suite at the Majestic Hotel the day before the film opened in Cannes. “Both of our mothers were teachers and were diagnosed with dementia in their early 50s. I empathized with the denial, fear and isolation that comes with a dementia diagnosis.”
Rogen said, “Everything we experienced firsthand is reflected in this story. I remember sitting around the kitchen and dining room table yelling at people that something was wrong here.”
“Tangles” is based on Sarah Leavitt’s graphic novel of the same name, and the Rogens hope it will resonate with audiences who may have experienced something similar in their own families. The film took over 10 years to make. That’s partly because Rogen is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after comedy stars and producers, but it also has to do with the fact that the subject matter is dark, even though he’s used considerable influence to fill out the cast with A-list friends like Bryan Cranston and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
“How many black-and-white animated movies are there about Alzheimer’s disease?” Miller-Rogen quips.
Bringing Leavitt’s deeply moving and often hilarious story to life was a meticulous process, as Tangles co-writer and director Leah Nelson wanted to use hand-drawn animation.
“We wanted that quality in it,” she says. “I needed to see the hands of the artists on this piece.”
And Nelson was keen to maintain the unique spirit of the novel while streamlining the story so that it could be read in less than two hours.
“Seth and Lauren were really great in helping us focus on the fact that just because something happens in real life, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same on screen,” says Nelson. “You have to start with reality and find what serves the story best.”
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In addition to producing the film, Rogen also plays a supporting role as Sara’s sister’s well-meaning and goofy boyfriend. An aspiring musician, he lent his vocal talents to covers of off-key, raucous songs like Melissa Etheridge’s “Come to My Window.”
“They assured me, ‘He doesn’t have to be a great singer,'” Rogen says. “That makes him tragic in his own way. But he doesn’t care. He’s very energetic.”
Rogen recently recreated another prestigious European film festival in the award-winning Hollywood satire “The Studio.” Parts of the upcoming second season will unfold at the Venice Film Festival.
“We’re really working hard to make the show as cinematic and romantic as possible in this old Hollywood way,” says Rogen. “Venice is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and a place I’ve always dreamed of filming. We scouted the festival last year and thought, ‘This would be a fun scene to jump into.’
But each episode of “The Studio” unfolds in one uninterrupted take. That meant Rogen and company couldn’t go to Lido during the festival.
“We recreated the entire festival ourselves,” Rogen says. “The way we shoot requires long, continuous runners, so we literally have to control every element of everything that’s in the frame. Everyone in the shot, from background actors to supporting characters, has to be positioned in a very specific way so that we can reset and start over.”
Madonna is one of the A-list guests who will make a cameo appearance on the upcoming season of The Studio, but Rogen won’t reveal anything about what she’ll do on the series.
“It’s crazy,” he says. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Nor has he given any advice on restructuring the film festival for Mike White, who plans to bring the next season of “White Lotus” to Cannes. “I’m not going to teach Mike White how to run a ship,” Rogen says.
The Rogens use their microphones to advocate for more research into Alzheimer’s disease and strengthen support networks for families caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease through their nonprofit Hilarity for Charity. For Miller Rogen, the Cannes premiere of Tangles was bittersweet.
“I wish my mom would have been here to see it,” she says. “But I’m happy that I was able to make so much good out of so much bad. And I’m making this happen because wherever she is, she wanted me to live my life and do what I want to do. But I would trade it all for more time with her.”
