TANGLES  & JIM QUEEN

This Saturday there are two queer movies playing back-to-back at Animation Is Film. Both are debut features fresh from Cannes, and each screening will have a filmmaker in attendance. 

They couldn't be more different in tone and content, but I think you should see them both as an unofficial queer double feature. 

First, your 5:30 appointment with a heartstring-tugging family drama. Early enough in the evening that you'll still have some emotional stamina, and you're gonna need it for Tangles. 

It's 1999 and Sarah is living her best queer life in San Francisco. She has a hot new motorcycle-butch beau, and she's just been promoted to illustrating the covers of the queer indie mag where she works. But back home, something's going on with her mom, Midge. As Midge's Alzheimer's becomes increasingly apparent, Sarah finds herself pulled between the life she's building for herself, and the conviction that she is the only thing standing between her family and the brink.

If you're thinking Tangles sounds like a tear-jerker, you're right. The devastation in this film is the kind that sticks to your spirit. Gooey, grief-y. 

Right alongside Sarah I felt powerless to intervene as Midge's cognitive awareness declined, and furious at the rest of her family, who seemed unwilling to confront their new reality. But watching Sarah's queer life in San Francisco slip further away, I wanted to shake sense into her, too. Live, goddammit, live! In the end, that's Sarah's lesson. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but sometimes obnoxious little sisters and irresponsible aunties might actually be onto something. 

The film is based on a graphic memoir, which is evident in the animation. Interludes where plot gives way to image fold in emotional truths too raw for pure narrative. The most memorable is a sequence moving through Midge's medical evaluations. We see her tied to strings like a marionette, her body parts pulled in different directions. Then when the diagnosis finally comes, Midge falls into a stark, graphic ocean and is pulled under by the waves. Sarah dives— paddling down to pull her mother up for air. 

This is director Leah Nelson's first feature, but she's been with the story for over 15 years. She first read the graphic memoir in 2010, and then befriended its author. They developed the film for a decade before getting Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen's Point Grey production company on board. The film's all-star voice cast includes beloved real-life-queer-person Abbi Jacobson as Sarah, alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, and Seth Rogen. 

Tangles is an emotional film, but it's not wall-to-wall crying. There is love, laughter, yearning, gratitude. Familiar feelings to anyone who has loved someone through memory loss.

In the credits there is a long list of names: loved ones of the cast and crew of Tangles who have been affected by dementia or Alzheimer's. I thought about my Grandma Ande, the one who taught me to love movies, and who I wish could see this one. With a full audience, I know each of us will be carrying someone's memory into the theater. 

Though it couldn't be more different in tone, Jim Queen lands on a similar idea: the people we love can hold onto pieces of us when we lose our grip on them. In Tangles that's Midge's memory and Sarah's own life. In Jim Queen, it's identity, held by a community ready to remind people who they are. 

But before I go on, let's get something straight. Yes, there is a true thematic connection between these movies. I stand by that. But I also don't want to let an elegant transition keep me from informing you very clearly: we have moved on from family drama— your 8 o'clock date is an outrageous, raunchy shock-comedy.  

Jim Perfect, the titular queen, is a gym-bro influencer in Paris's underground gay scene. And when I say gay, I'm talking about the boys. Boys everywhere. Jim's life is derailed when he becomes infected with Heterosis, a sexually transmitted disease turning gay men straight. An unlikely hero comes to Jim's rescue: the waifish Lucien, son of the homophobic health minister. Together, they traverse subcultures and cruising sites around Paris in search of a cure. 

Lucien starts the film by singing (yes, it's a musical) an obvious “Part of Your World” homage. It's not surprising to see The Little Mermaid referenced— that movie is gay enough that we track it on the QFLA calendar. And its message to kids, to follow your heart straight to where the (homosexual) people are, was a siren song for millennial queers like co-director Marco Nguyen. 

Nguyen was organizing gay parties in Paris when he started developing Jim Queen. He and co-director Nicolas Athané were already working in animation, but it took creativity and chutzpah to finance and finish a movie this gay.

And reader, it really is that gay. This movie straddles the boundaries of good taste. It's often irreverent and nasty. The secondary antagonist of the film is a leather daddy who leads the “Gaystapo” and harnesses an army of pups to sniff out those infected with Heterosis, kidnap them, and turn them back into gay men through torturous methods like the “conversion sarcophagus.” There are truly no holds barred, but it's not rage bait. The story is grounded in history and has a clear political message about our present world. 

In a particularly moving scene Glamydia, a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence drag queen, sings a wistful farewell to the sisters she's lost, bringing a moment of poignancy and a connection to the history of HIV/AIDS activism, when the Sisters cared for sick people despite stigma. 

While it respects the past, the movie's greatest strength is how well it captures the current moment. We're living through a period of unprecedented visibility but simultaneous backsliding in LGBTQ+ rights.

Underneath the outrageous premise is a timely story about a parent who cannot tolerate their gay child and takes that rejection out on the rest of the world. Queer joy anywhere is a threat to such parents because our community offers a child an alternative source of love and support and encourages the very traits the parent wants to squash. Jim Queen ends with a rallying cry: we're here, we're queer, and we're not going anywhere. Not now, not ever.

I know a double feature can feel long, but you truly must see how this movie ends. I promise you won't want to miss the—ehem—climax. The resolution is over-the-top, revelatory, and unapologetic. It must be seen in a theater, with a big gay crowd. 

Tangles and Jim Queen playing back-to-back at AIF is a lucky break for those of us who love queer animation. And I'd argue the contrast between the films strengthens the case for watching them together. Both films will benefit from the collective catharsis of tears and laughter. You'll need other people to hold you through watching Tangles, and you'll want other people to keel over laughing with while watching Jim Queen. 

Tangles

Oct 17, 5:30 @ TCL Chinese Theatres

With special guest director Leah Nelson.

Use discount code qfla_26

Tickets from Animation Is Film

Jim Queen

Oct 17, 8:00 @ TCL Chinese Theatres

With special guest co-director Marco Nguyen.

Use discount code qfla_26

Tickets from Animation Is Film