By the time Ruth’s granddaughter muses “I bet Grandma was a babe” while trying on a stylish camel-colored coat the older woman left behind, Familiar Touch has given us plenty of opportunity to reach the same conclusion ourselves. Ruth, played by Kathleen Chalfant, is in her 80s and past the point in life when people use terms like that to describe you, even if she retains a translucent beauty. But it’s easy to see the signs that she’s long been accustomed to being pursued and admired. It’s there in the care she takes with her appearance when getting dressed, not to mention the playful flirtation that creeps into her voice when she’s talking to a man she finds handsome. In the opening scenes of the film, the quietly wondrous feature debut of writer-director Sarah Friedland, that playful lilt creeps into Ruth’s voice as she has a younger man over for lunch at her sunny California house, overflowing with plants and books. “How will we get along?” she teases, putting her hand on his leg, after he tells her he’s married and she responds that she’s married, too. The man, Steve (H. Jon Benjamin, unexpectedly sweet and owl-eyed behind glasses), reacts with subdued discomfort, because as we’ve already guessed — but as Ruth, who has dementia, has forgotten — he’s actually her son.
Movies about dementia tend to present it like something out of a horror movie, a gradual hollowing out from the inside, as seen in Still Alice and Amour, and an experience that is measured, understandably, by those watching their loved ones fade away. Certainly, as seen from Steve’s perspective, his mother’s making a pass at him after failing to recognize him isn’t a pleasant ordeal. But Familiar Touch is something more generous — an account of dementia not as an end but as a period of transition for Ruth, as she leaves her home behind for an upscale care facility called Bella Vista that, Steve reminds her, she chose herself. This information doesn’t make the prospect of leaving her home painless, but Ruth approaches it with a haughty dignity that soon becomes familiar. “I’m not one of those elderly people you have to watch constantly,” she informs Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle, exuding tolerance and warmth), the nurse who shows her around. Indeed, Ruth regards the other Bella Vista residents — many of whom are played by the actual residents of a retirement community in Los Angeles — with skepticism and at least a little disdain.
She prefers to instead think of herself as part of the staff, at one point charging into the kitchen under the impression she’s doing a shift as part of her former occupation as a cook, while the staffers there indulge her (and admire her plating). Vanessa becomes a friend, and Brian (Andy McQueen), the wellness director who gives her a checkup every other week, a suitor she has to play patient for in order to see. This comforting fiction does eventually fall apart, but Familiar Touch is finely wrought enough to not present this as a comeuppance or simply a disaster. It’s too deeply entwined with Ruth’s experiences for that, as well as the ways in which she remains very much herself even when she’s no longer entirely sure what’s going on. Chalfant is one of those acclaimed theater actors who has never found the same showcase for her talents onscreen, and the delicacy of what she does in this role is astounding, transmitting Ruth’s tumultuous state of mind without words and making us aware of the whirring of her brain as she, say, puts a slice of toast in the dish rack and then looks at it for a while, sensing that something isn’t right but unable to figure out what. Friedland refuses to condescend to the characters she puts onscreen, whether it’s prickly, incisive Ruth or the care workers like Brian and Vanessa, whose private encounters and overheard snippets of conversation provide reminders that they are not simply smiling figures providing nurturing for people whose families can afford the convenience.
Familiar Touch can be sad, without question, but it’s also salty and boundlessly tender — a decisive statement that Ruth’s life is not over, even if she can no longer keep living it the way she did before. Unstuck from time, she’s in some ways getting in touch with her own memories in a kaleidoscopic way, reliving her childhood one moment, and restored to her prime as an experienced hand with a paring knife in another. Friedland’s camera is usually still, taking in what Ruth is going through with an avid openness that the film, as a whole, exudes. It’s the stillness of someone who doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but who’s looking forward to it with more hope than fear.
