Seth Rogen’s Heartbreaking New Movie Stuns Cannes with Massive Ovation

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, in collaboration with You Know Films’ Alex Noyer for The Séance, Collider is thrilled to offer our readers insight into a can’t-miss upcoming animated feature that redefines what the medium can do with storytelling. Adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s poignant graphic novel memoir, Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me, and produced by Seth Rogen, Tangles tells the story of a daughter and her family coming to terms with a difficult new reality.

Though the cast and crew enlist the talent of some of comedy’s biggest stars, Rogen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Abbi Jacobson, Tangles explores a harrowing emotional journey as Sarah (Jacobson) and her mother Midge (Louis-Dreyfus) are forced to accept her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Told through “limitless, beautiful” hand-drawn animation, the headstrong Sarah moves back home to her small, conservative town, where she witnesses her mother’s vibrant personality being stripped away by the disease. In order to become the daughter her mother needs, she’ll have to learn to embrace her family’s imperfections and the cruel inevitability of Alzheimer’s. Tangles also features the talents of Samira Wiley, Bryan Cranston, Wanda Sykes, Pamela Adlon, Beanie Feldman, and more.

While talking with the Tangles team, Noyer spoke with Rogen about both his voice acting role in the film and serving as producer alongside his partner, screenwriter, director, and producer Lauren Miller Rogen. The two co-founded Hilarity for Charity, a leading nonprofit that brings awareness to and accelerates progress in Alzheimer’s research and care, making them ideal and obvious partners in bringing Tangles to life on screen. When asked about his involvement in the film and why it was important for him to be a part of it, Rogen explained:

“I would never make a film just because it supported a cause that I was passionate about, honestly. I’m only interested in making movies or working on movies that I think, themselves, stand on their own as great films, hopefully. So, that’s really what this was. The fact that it also happened to be about something that I had personal experience with and felt very deeply about made us work even harder on it and raised our own personal bars for what we hoped the movie could be. But I always viewed it as a great story that I hoped would make a great film, and I believed would make a great film.

I made a movie about cancer many years ago, about our friend who had cancer, and I’ve seen how if you really take ownership of the characters and the personal story, and unabashedly allow yourself to dive into these really sensitive subjects with care, something that you can only really do when you have a very close personal connection to it, it definitely allows you to take greater creative risks, because you’re not afraid of, like, ‘Well, what will people think of this?’ because you’ve experienced it and you can stand behind it.”

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Don’t miss the full conversation with the cast and crew, straight from Cannes, where they celebrated Tangles’ world premiere, receiving a seven-minute standing ovation. In this interview, director Leah Nelson, Rogen, Miller Rogen, Leavitt, Louis-Dreyfus, Jacobson, and Wiley discuss why animation was the ideal medium to tell Leavitt’s story on screen, how the cast embodied their characters through voice performance, and how important it was to depict this heartbreaking topic in a truthful, dignified way through heart and honesty. You can watch the full interview in the video above, with time codes below.

• 00:24 – The Tangles team discusses premiering their animated film at Cannes.
• 01:12 – Director Leah Nelson on why animation was the right medium for telling such an emotional story.
• 02:36 – Creator Sarah Leavitt reflects on seeing her graphic novel and personal family story adapted to the screen.
• 04:08 – Lauren Miller Rogen discusses balancing honesty, dignity, and advocacy in portraying Alzheimer’s.
• 05:49 – Seth Rogen explains why the project became personally and creatively important to him.
• 07:34 – Abbi Jacobson talks about voicing a real person and recording alongside fellow actors.
• 09:41 – Samira Wiley discusses bringing physicality and emotional intimacy into voice performance.
• 10:52 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus reflects on truth, denial, and emotional honesty in the film’s family dynamic.

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Release Date

May 14, 2026

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Runtime

102 minutes

Director

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Leah Nelson

Writers

Leah Nelson, Trev Renney

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Producers

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Seth Rogen, Alex McAtee, Evan Goldberg, Lauren Miller, Alan Powell, James Weaver, Jen W. Ray, Nelson Murray, Vicky Patel, Jay Grandin, Lauren Miller Rogen, Leah Nelson, Ross Murray, Steve Barnett, Teresa Toews

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