Familiar Touch (12A)

A retired cook, Ruth (stage and screen veteran Kathleen Chalfant) prepares breakfast in her kitchen. It’s a dish she’s made many times before, but puzzling errors now punctuate her routine.

When her son arrives, she mistakes him for a suitor, and their “date” takes them to an assisted living facility, where Ruth feels certain she does not belong.

As Ruth slowly begins to accept the warmth and support of care workers Vanessa and Brian, she finds new ways to ground herself in her body, even as her mind embarks on a journey all its own.

Writer-director Sarah Friedland’s exquisitely precise and humane “coming-of-old-age” debut compassionately follows the winding path of Ruth’s shifting memories and desires. Shot on location at a retirement community in California, with some residents participating in making and/or performing in the film, Familiar Touch is a humane, unsentimental and searching film that eschews the narrative and stylistic tropes of many dementia stories, instead prioritising Ruth’s perspective throughout.