The Film Review: Sarah Friedland’s “Familiar Touch”
By Ross
Ruth, played with tenderness and soul by the incredible Kathleen Chalfant (59E59/Acting Company’s A Woman of the World), is moving around her home with gentle care in preparation for what feels like a luncheon with someone of importance. It draws us in, this “Familiar Touch“, a film produced by Music Box Films, that holds us lovingly in its outstretched hands. Deep within this beautifully curated scene of casual intimacy and gentle engagement, thanks to the beautiful cinematography by Gabe Elder (“The Sparks Brothers“) and the superb focused direction and screenplay by Sarah Friedland (“Trust Exercises“), the film expertly elevates the tension that lives just below the surface, unannounced but somehow vibrational. The meal is being thoughtfully prepared, chopped, and arranged with deliberate care by someone who obviously knows their way around the kitchen. Yet we also feel that something isn’t quite right about the moment, and that subtle but substantial anxiety infiltrates the space as she flips through the hangers, unable to pick the correct outfit for her expected visitor.
The arrival of the man, portrayed beautifully by H. Jon Benjamin (“Bob’s Burgers“), is casual, but carries a weight of meaning, unknown to us just yet. Still, we feel something isn’t connecting with the older woman. She looks at him in an oddly observant manner, seemingly knowing who he is and why he’s here, but not entirely. Or maybe, not at all. They sit, and a stilted conversation flows out over her signature dish. We sense that she has it somehow wrong. She talks to this younger man as if she’s on something akin to a date, but we clearly get the sense that he’s uncomfortable with her informing chatter. We also get the reality of the situation from the look on his sad face when she can’t quite remember who she is hosting, and why. And then the lunch is over, abruptly, when she reaches out for a familiar touch that is
evidently inappropriate. A break has occurred, and we think we know why, but we hold our breath, waiting for the crack to present itself fully.
(Music Box Films)
The set-up of “Familiar Touch” registers deeply and with great empathy, especially after he packs her into the car and they drive off uncomfortably. The overall energy is pure sadness with a side order of grief, infused with her confusion and his discomfort with what he has to do. And then they pull up to a condo-like home; clearly an assisted living center for seniors, and the pieces of a pretty obvious puzzle fall into place. The nurse, portrayed luminously by the wonderful Carolyn Michelle (“And Just Like That…“), thanks the man, Steve, for dropping off his mother at what will now be her new home. The look in Ruth’s eyes and her son’s face when she replies, “I don’t have a son?!” registers with a heaviness that solidifies all our fears that were vibrating in the back of our collective minds. And we sigh, with a knowing sadness for what is happening, what must have happened, and what awaits this elderly woman.
“You said you wanted to be here. You chose this place“, he says with all the care and empathy he has inside. This is what “Familiar Touch“, an achingly tender drama of quiet proportions, does best: navigating the unfamiliar hallways in her new life in the memory care unit of his geriatric country club and all that swirls around her like a luminescent fog. She waits, impatiently, for a menu to be handed to her at her first breakfast, thinking she is at some sort of resort, but slowly and carefully, we watch and breathe in her newfound experience as the subtle elements of her days unfold. There are no over-the-top emotional entrapments, like we might expect in a film like this, just quiet discrepancies and rewindings in her imagination and memories. And in that floating space, we discover profound engagement and connection.
(Music Box Films)
The writing is beautifully still, yet destabilizing, allowing us to quietly join with her soul and her confusion. We follow her, with empathy and care, as she tries with all her might to stay tuned in; to herself, her memory, her abilities to recite recipes, recall her address, and stay attuned to her sensual self and emotional faith. She floats in a ray of historical sunshine in the pool and tries to be of use in the kitchen as she once did in her job as a cook (“not a chef“, she corrects those around her). She soulfully connects with the staff, especially the kind doctor Brian, played compassionately by Andy McQueen (“Highest 2 Lowest“), which subtly captures her attempt to hold herself together, as a person and as a woman. It’s no surprise, as we watch the details of Ruth’s life within this place of care, that writer/director Friedland once worked as a caregiver to a person with dementia, bringing a certain level of understanding and compassion to the space that Ruth must navigate. There are so many visuals that add a sense of whimsy to the tension and to the sadness, manifesting the ability to sit carefully within the created space without feeling overwhelmed by the dramatic framing and formula.
“Ruth, it’s time to get out now…” and we are there with her, floating and feeling for her. It’s the tenderest of spaces, reserved for Chalfant, who delivers a dynamic, quiet perspective that keeps us tuned in, even as the film wanders the hallway a bit, rather than firmly guiding us somewhere specific. It’s not about the endpoint, but the changing dynamic that Ruth must find her way through as she gradually fades slowly away. The interactions between her caregivers, as “Familiar Touch” approaches its final act, give the piece its emotional clarity and weight, and its captivating finality. But it’s that almost final image of Steve and Ruth dancing in the halo of memories almost lost that provides the film its gentle denouement, leaving us feeling compassion for her and the changing world that swirls too fast around her. She is left behind, lost in passive thought and a growing fog of memories, yet carrying an intuitive understanding of the love and care that once existed, reflected silently in the rear-view mirror.
