‘Familiar Touch’ Is a Rare and Compassionate Work of Art

The remarkable and accomplished Kathleen Chalfant (Wit) strikes senior-citizen gold again in Familiar Touch. It’s another film about geriatric challenges faced by a woman at the end of a long, productive life as a loving, devoted wife and mother and a respected career as a successful chef, now adjusting to a new, unexpected chapter as an octogenarian in an assisted living facility. This is a problem that impacts the lives of so many people that it’s a shame it isn’t explored more often in the movies, but the subject of growing old gracefully has proved to be box office poison, and movies about people who do it with dignity and grace win awards but play to empty houses. Paying audiences just don’t flock in droves to films that focus on liver spots and wheelchairs.

I hope Familiar Touch is an exception, because to miss it would be to overlook a rare and compassionate work of art, not to mention one of the most honest, heartfelt performances of this or any other year in motion picture history. At first, we don’t know or even suspect there is anything wrong with Ruth (Chalfant), a woman who hums while she prepares a signature lunch of cold salmon for a date she hardly knows. She meticulously prepares her sauce, then gingerly selects a conservative black dress with a romantic wistfulness. When she places her hand on her guest’s thigh, he writhes uncomfortably. Gradually, the uneasy scene takes shape. Ruth’s guest is not the link to a romantic interlude. He’s her middle-aged son, not a luncheon companion, and he’s come to her sparsely furnished apartment to see her—not to eat her cold salmon, but to drive her and her packed bags to an old folks home where he plans to check her into a new life and a new place to live it in. 

Ruth seems normal, decisive, capable of taking care of herself, while holding onto every last vestige of sanity and independence in her mind. Pragmatic in spite of her confusion, she accepts her new circumstances without voicing resistance or causing a disturbance. In the dining room, where fellow residents stare at their scrambled eggs with awe, she plays around with her unappetizing food with a fork of indifference. When the friendly staff feeds her pills to fight cholesterol, improve memory loss, encourage energy and treat a dozen other aging conditions of age she doesn’t understand, Ruth recites a recipe for borscht to a bored attendant to prove she still has a functioning brain and the capacity for memory. Scene by scene, the vicissitudes of old age are wisely, sensitively observed and related, in a screenplay by Sarah Friedland (who also directed) that exemplifies clemency without pity, and acted by an elderly ensemble cast that is amazing to watch. To ensure authenticity, Familiar Touch was filmed with the collaboration of the actual residents and staff of Bella Vista, a real retirement community, giving it a moment-to-moment reality that is touching but never deliberately, depressingly so. Special significance should be awarded to H. Jon Benjamin, as the tortured son, Carolyn Michelle as Vanessa and Andy McQueen as Brian, as staff members who give Ruth affection above and beyond the call of duty.  

And through the rooms and activities, at the center of everything, is the overwhelming tenderness and humanity of Kathleen Chalfant, who unlocks the mysterious keys of Alzheimer’s for us all to understand, with no histrionics and no bursts of emotional self-indulgence. She belies all those warnings about the inevitable results of illness and physical failure. We hear about the eventual, unavoidable danger of living too long, when the teeth grow soft and the apple no longer bites. Some of us might even experience it someday. But she is fearless, exposing every line and wrinkle, but beautiful in the process. Clearly, she could use some Plexiderm. But she makes you see and feel the virtues of age without fear or anxiety. What a performance, and what a movie.