“Familiar Touch” is a simple, documdrama-real film of frank honesty and sensitivity about dementia and adjusting to life in Memory Care.
If you’re fortunate enough to not know that label, describing the wing or floor of any nursing home or assisted living facility dedicated to those with Alzheimer’s or suffering from other forms of dementia, Sarah Friedland’s quiet drama about one patient, the son who checks her in and the staff and fellow patients this grandmother must adjust to in her more sentient moments is a 90 minute crash course.
Speaking from experience, it’s idealized, with a wonderfully indulgent, competent and caring staff set in what employees label a “geriatric country club” in Pasadena, California. Our patient rarely seems to test their patience as she demands a menu from a dining room that isn’t a restuarant, huffs about unpacking herself and even clocks in at the kitchen, lost in memories of her own line-cook-in-a-diner days.
The screamers, the tantrum-tossers, the walking, dead-eyed catatonics who wander into others’ rooms and crawl into their beds and those who simply doze away their last years away in front of a TV don’t make an appearance in Bella Vista.
But Friedland and her star, Kathleen Chalfat (from “Old,” and TV’s “The Affair”) create an otherwise realistic and touching portrait of what one woman’s arrival in life’s pentultimate destination can be like.
Ruth is a creature of habit and routine, living alone in the home she’s had for many years, caring for herself, puttering around her kitchen prepping meals.
But we see, in a dialogue-free eight minute prologue, the signs. She waits for her toast, and when it pops out, she stores the slice into a drying dishrack beside the sink. She slides clothes back and forth in her closet, either looking for a dress that’s no longer there, or forgetting what she was looking for in the first place, and why.
That man (veteran cartoon voice H. Jon Benjamin of “Bob’s Burgers”) who shows up for lunch? She acts as if he’s a gentleman caller, coyly smiling, serving him lunch, asking him what he does for a living.
Steve is an architect.
Oh! “My father builds houses. He’s a carpenter. Maybe you’ll meet him someday.”
“Are you seeing anybody special?”
Yes. He has a wife and child. But that’s OK, she says.
“I’m married, too.”
But no, he can’t be her son. “I never wanted children.”
Ruth is able to carry on a conversation. Steve is patient but sad, barely bothering to correct her mistakes any more.
There’s no point in that, or explaining that today is moving day. He just escorts her into the car, fetches a packed bag (she acts as if she assumes they’re going away for a weekend together). When they arrive, he checks her in, reassures her that “We took the tour” and “This was the place you chose.” And then he leaves.
Ruth’s reaction to this new “Memory Lane” living situation can be snappish, profane and imperious, confused or even resigned. Chalfant’s performance is a virtuoso piece of screen understatement.
“I’m not one of those elderly people you need to watch constantly.“
Some try to befriend her. Others confuse her for old friends. She lapses into childhood reveries in the pool, or workplace routine in a kitchen where the staff lets her prep the day’s fruit salad as they wait for a caregiver to come fetch her.
Visits from family are few and far between. That paliative “Familiar Touch” is hard to come by.
Some of what happens as Ruth connects the ever-patient nurse Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle) and Dr. Brian (Andy McQueen) can seem contrived and melodramatic. Sure, memory care patients “escape” every now and then. Most don’t do it in the middle of a “speed dating night” at the home.
Say what now? Oh. California.
If you’re old enough to have some experience with loved ones facing this sort of caregiving, you’ll recognize and empathize with Ruth’s plight, the staff’s and even Steve’s. Although it may be hard to suppress the urge to snap, “Sonny, get your daughter and go visit your mother.”
And if this is an alien world to you, just thank your lucky stars. Chances are, you’ll get your initiation soon enough.
Rating: unrated, profanity
Cast: Kathleen Chalfat, Carolynn Michelle, Andy McQueen and H. Jon Benjamin
Credits: Scripted and directed by Sarah Friedland. A Music Box Films release.
Running time: 1:30
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