Familiar Touch review: a powerful portrait of life with dementia

In Familiar Touch, Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant) is a woman in her 80s with very good taste. As she moves around her sunny kitchen preparing a smoked salmon brunch for two, she carefully arranges the ingredients and tops the dish with fresh dill from one of the pots in her picture window.

Her Los Angeles house is all lived-in luxury – but something’s not right. There are odd pauses as she puts the toast in the… dishrack? At the table she looks at her napkin, just for a moment, as if it’s a foreign object.

Then there’s the defining matter of not knowing the man who comes to brunch is her middle-aged son, Steve (H Jon Benjamin) and not a romantic date. ‘Don’t worry, I’m married too,’ she reassures him, patting his knee flirtatiously. Steve tries not to wince.

The fact that he doesn’t confront the mistake suggests it’s a common one. He’s there to take her on a one-way trip – she insists it be a surprise! – to the Bella Vista assisted care facility.

Familiar Touch depicts Ruth’s first months in her new home as she experiences disbelief and confusion, but also joy, laughter and even sensual desire. There are complicated new relationships with her tender, intelligent care workers (Carolyn Michelle and Andy McQueen) and with other residents who live on the memory lane wing.

Familiar Touch: overturning cliches or wishful thinking?

This could all be a very grim affair but the miracle of Familiar Touch is that it’s not. This home is a particularly cushy one, a ‘geriatric country club,’ as one care worker jokes, noting that his own mother couldn’t afford it.

There’s no elder abuse here. No screaming or drooling or obvious neglect. It’s the opposite of horror. There’s a swimming pool for one-on-one physical therapy and, in one hilarious scene, fun activities like VR headsets. The people who work here are almost angelic in their respect and gentleness, sensitively accommodating different versions of truth as it’s understood by those living with dementia.

Some might criticise this film as a wishful-thinking fairytale because of this positive, moneyed depiction of aged care but this was a deliberate choice, made to centre the story on the lived experience of one defiantly individual character rather than the broader social issues around dementia. Having said that, the film provides a model for what might be possible, without shying away from the losses involved as inevitably we move closer to death.

Mostly known for her work in theatre and TV, Chalfant is commanding as Ruth, a woman accustomed to being in charge of a commercial kitchen. A former cook and cookbook author, Ruth’s love of food and fresh produce persists despite her memory loss. She may not remember her son but she can still recite the entire recipe for borscht to her health worker. Triumphant at the end of the performance she asks, ‘Would someone with you-know-what be able to do that?’

The pleasure of food, and of naming and arranging it, remains central to Ruth’s identity. In one scene she comforts herself in a grocery store, artistically laying out vegetables, meat and fruit on plastic bags as if preparing a still life. This is just one of many beautifully composed stationary shots that keep us close to her point of view.

Cinematographer Gabe C Elder observes what she observes in long takes and snatched moments, while also allowing us to see very old age in a way we usually resist: the wrinkled skin on her wrists and the scalp showing through wispy hair at her unprotected neck.

The beauty of Ruth is bright in her live blue eyes but even these dim at times. The mystery of what she does or doesn’t remembers from moment to moment is part of the story’s pull. Sometimes Ruth seems playfully aware of her plight, while at other’s she’s off in a love story of her own making. But she’s still herself, the film is saying, or a version of herself, with preferences and longings. Not to be written off.

Empathy and experience: telling stories about old age

Familiar Touch is directed and written by Sarah Friedland, a young choreographer and filmmaker who describes herself as ‘working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies’. It was inspired by Friedland’s experience as a memory care worker and art teacher for older adults, and was made in collaboration with residents of a real aged care facility.

The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in 2024 in the Horizons section, where it won Best First Film, Best Director and Best Actress for Chalfant. It’s been widely awarded and acclaimed since then and you can see why.

Many films about dementia understandably focus on the tragedy. They can veer into melodrama, especially when representing how dementia affects couples, a dynamic explored by Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci in Supernova (2020), Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her (2006) and Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin in Still Alice (2014).

Then there are the psychological thrillers like The Father (2020) starring Anthony Hopkins and horror films like Natalie Erika James’ excellent Relic (2020), a film so affecting it makes it impossible to write a reminder on a post-it without thinking of Robyn Nevin’s desperate crone and her terrible wallpaper made of notes.

What’s it like to lose your memory? Or to watch someone you love lose theirs? They are questions many of us are asking, with those over 55 facing a 42 per cent lifetime risk of developing dementia. Familiar Touch is confronting at times, yes, but also reassuring, suggesting that perhaps something essential remains, even when we’re reduced to living from moment to precious moment.

Deeply humane, it reasserts the value and dignity of human life even when it looks unproductive. And that’s a message we all want to hear as we enter the dark.

Familiar Touch is released on 23 October 2025. Watch the trailer.

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