Peter Bradshaw 

Wrinkles – review

This funny and heartbreaking Spanish animation set in a care home for people with Alzheimer's is desolate yet lovable, writes Peter Bradshaw
  
  

Wrinkles, Spanish animation
Tender and lovable … Wrinkles Photograph: PR

The warmest possible welcome for this funny and heartbreaking animation from Spain by Ignacio Ferreras, which I saw at the San Sebastián film festival a couple of years ago, and which is now getting a limited UK showing.

It is about a care home for people with Alzheimer's. A retired bank manager called Emilio (originally voiced by Álvaro Guevara, but redubbed by Martin Sheen for this release) is placed by his son in a home when his forgetfulness becomes too much to bear, and his new residency assumes the character of the politest possible prison movie. Poor bewildered Emilio is befriended by the dodgy Miguel, who shows Emilio how to survive and how to make the best impression on the nurses and care-facility managers. This movie has the same desolate quality as Philip Larkin's poem The Building, and yet it is tender and lovable, too.

• Wrinkles is released in the UK on 18 April 2014

 

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