At the start of Familiar Touch, an octogenarian named Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant) thinks she’s having a younger man over for a lunch date, but we soon suspect that Steve (H. Jon Benjamin) is actually her son. Things are confusing for Ruth, increasingly so. And so Steve helps her move into a senior residence facility that offers hands-on care to those struggling with dementia. In telling this story, writer-director Sarah Friedland, making her feature debut, seems determined to avoid sentimentality. There is no score, while the camera barely moves, instead focusing for patient stretches on careful interior compositions or the realities of Ruth’s aging body. If Familiar Touch can at times feel turgid, such languidness also allows for an “out of time” quality that, perhaps, gives us a sense of what’s going on in Ruth’s head. The movie dissipates slightly when it attempts to incorporate the experiences of other characters—a nurse (Carolyn Michelle), a doctor (Andy McQueen)—yet when it remains focused on Ruth’s subjective perspective, it offers something special, and tough.
(6/23/2025)
