Rughe

A Spanish animated drama telling the story of Emilio, a retired bank manager who is developing early signs of Alzheimer. His son makes the difficult decision to put him in a care home, much to his father's disappointment. There, he slowly strikes up a friendship with his roommate Miguel who has all his marbles and spends his time making money out of his confused neighbours. The two find ways of relieving the boredom of the home but Emilio is seemingly fighting a losing battle as his memory begins to fade.

I thought this was an interesting little drama with a balanced mix of pathos and humour. For someone who works with older people, often in a care capacity, much of this rang true with me, particularly the boredom and loneliness that many experience when they move into a home. It never threatens to be anything truly groundbreaking and the animation is pretty basic but nonetheless it is a worthy film with some lovely scenes and will strike a chord with anyone who has had to deal with this terrible disease.

I'll cut right to the chase—Paco Roca's story "Wrinkles" is exceptionally well done but also extremely difficult to watch. Some of this might be because I am soon approaching my 50th birthday, though I would think anyone watching the film would feel a great sense of dread about old age, dementia and stagnation—as they are the themes of this depressing story.

Wrinkles is an animated film from Spain and although I always prefer subtitled films, cartoons can usually be dubbed without a serious problem for the viewer and this is definitely true of this film. Plus, in a nice nod to the original cast, when the English language version ended, they listed not only the English language voice actors but the original Spanish ones as well.

The movie follows the lives of Emilio (Martin Sheen) and Miguel (George Coe)—two men who have been forced to move into a retirement home. Much of the film centers on Emilio, as he moves from living with his son to the nursing home. The transition isn't easy, as Emilio is losing his independence and the staff at the place treat the residents in a rather patronizing manner. Miguel, a long-time resident, helps Emilio to get used to the place. Sadly, you soon realize that Emilio is slowly losing his mind to Alzheimer's and Miguel is determined to fight to stay alert and mentally sound. How the two become friends and deal with this institutional life is the focus of the film and the final portion shows how Miguel adapts to the loss of his friend…or at least the man who his friend used to be.

The least satisfying thing about "Wrinkles" is the animation. It isn't bad—just don't expect Disney or Miyazaki! In many ways, the artwork looks a lot like the great TV series "The Critic". This isn't a serious problem and didn't harm the story—but it certainly isn't the strong point of the film.

As to the strength of the film, it's the writing and dialog. It is an expertly crafted film and it was nice to see an adult animated movie instead of the usual kiddie fare. The film never shies away from the depressing aspects of institutional living and the characters seemed very real. This makes for a very good film but also for a super- depressing one. Because you care for the characters, it hurts to see them slip away…and it reminds you that it will most likely happen to you as well. Because of this, while I appreciated the film it is clearly a difficult film for many to watch. Such lines as 'you you're your whole…and THIS is how it ends…" clearly aren't examples of a feel-good movie! The seriously depressed should also avoid it as I just can only imagine watching the film would make this worse.

A beautifully told and scenically depicted tale of friendship, love, cynicism, disappointment and hope in the twilight years. It's a pleasant departure from the Disney-Pixar brand of animated movies, and hits the right notes with realistic problems, real-life humor and eccentric characters.

If you rate a good movie as one which can make you feel a range of emotions, from sympathy, happiness, sadness, to thrill of adventure, hope and that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see a P&G ad, this movie is sure to delight and stay with you for a reasonably long time.

It does get slow in bits. You go through topsy turvy emotions with Emilio and Miguel's friendship and quirkiness along the way. There's Antonia and other characters to lend life to the gloominess of a general old age home. But what you can never guess, is the heart warming end to this beautifully crafted movie.

Worth a watch. Go see it now.

NOTE: This is a review of the English-dubbed version of Wrinkles, featuring voice actors Martin Sheen and Matthew Modine.

"Poignant" is the word many are using to describe Wrinkles, and that word carries a great deal of weight here, since many of us will likely face a similar reality to the characters in this particular film. Getting older, coping with age, and facing life-threatening/altering ailments isn't something we generally like to talk about, which is why Wrinkles presents it to us through beautifully simplistic, 2D animation created through use of an animation cell. The film's brightly colored visuals and clean-cut presentation make us look at age not through a softened lens, but one that allows us not to get blinded through our tears to actually focus on the bigger picture.

Our main character is Emilio (voiced by Martin Sheen), a once thriving banker who has now been placed in a nursing home by his family when he becomes slower than he used to be. Emilio also seems to be in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and reluctantly goes along with his family's plan to keep him in a care facility until further notice. Not long after arriving, Emilio meets Miguel (Matthew Modine), his roommate and the home's two-bit slickster, constantly taking money from the older, senile residents and remaining loyal to his individual self since he never had a wife or any real family. Miguel takes a liking to Emilio and his former banker ways, even going as far as referring to him as "Rockefeller," and showing him the ropes of the facility.

Miguel introduces Emilio to all the residents of the home, including Antonia, an elderly woman who collects the tea, cream, sugar, and cracker packets liberally given out at lunch and dinnertime (surely you have grandparents like this), Felix, a former radio-broadcaster who now simply parrots what others around him say, the long-suffering Dolores, who resides at the home solely to care for her husband in his advanced stages of Alzheimer's, and a woman who sits by a window all day long, believing she's riding the Orient Express.

Miguel explains to Emilio how these places cater to potential clients and family members more than they do the actual elderly clients they're responsible for. This idea comes up when Emilio takes note of a beautiful, but untouched, swimming pool in the nursing home's lobby, where Miguel states it's there simply to look nice for family members who believe their relatives are being cared for and catered to at this place. His ideas almost mirror that of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in The Savages, only expressed with much less hostility. Where Hoffman asserted these meticulously trimmed hedges, pervasively waxed floors, and neatly tidied and organized rooms were mere distractions of the fact that nursing homes are where people age, get sick, and die, Miguel seems to accept the hierarchy as a cruel rite of passage that cannot be overturned.

Wrinkles, however, doesn't spend too long criticizing the nursing home system. It spends more time exploring the characters at hand. Its simplistic, but pleasantly unique, 2D animation prevents things like spectacles from taking over, and instead, shows facial expressions and character/facial features. This emphasis makes the film a film of refined detail, and the fact that it's situated on characters instead of constantly conjuring up events makes this a very mannered exercise in age.

Most of Wrinkles is Emilio and Miguel roaming the nursing home, talking, Emilio's condition gradually worsening, and interactions with other inmates. A lesser film would've evoked some kind of incredulous plot to have the two geezers try and score a piece of tail from one of the nurses (thankfully, time spent doing that is instead traded for harmless observing). Rarely are animated films this loose and fluid; most are rooted in momentary gratification, constantly looking for ways for their characters to exploit every ounce of energy they've come equipped with. Wrinkles contributes to the animation for adults genre, a genre which greatly lacks a lot of attention and a lot of good, known options. It's a thoroughly tender film as heartwarming as its characters can be, and a look inside the realities of aging without the sugarcoating or the half-handed depictions. It's further proof that sometimes one of the softest presentations in film can back the hardest, most impacting punch (see My Dog Tulip for further confirmation).

Voiced by: Martin Sheen and Matthew Modine. Directed by: Ignacio Ferreras.

This animated picture is not aimed at children. And while you might have heard this before, especially concerning animated movies from Asia, this is a whole different deal. This involves matters and issues that concern the elderly. That does not mean, it is only for the elderly. Hopefully many people will watch it, but it would be a shame if you went to watch this movie expecting something else.

After this sort of foreword, I hope you know what you are letting yourself into. The movie itself is a tough watch, but it still has its funny moments nevertheless. The graphics might not appeal to everybody, same goes for the ethics and the way the movie ends. But you can't satisfy everybody ...