In Familiar Touch, Kathleen Chalfant stars as Ruth, an aging former chef struggling with early-stage dementia, who is slowly transitioning into life at an assisted living facility. The film follows her journey with deep empathy and observational grace, capturing moments of disorientation, small joys, and the complex negotiations between autonomy and care. Her son Steve, played with gentle complexity by H. Jon Benjamin, tries to support her while navigating his own emotional fatigue.

Chalfant is extraordinary in the role—so grounded and subtle that you never catch her acting, only existing. I love those scenes the most when Ruth is connecting to her cooking. In one particularly moving moment, she insists to her doctor that she can still care for herself by walking him, step by step, through her borscht recipe. She rattles off the ingredients and instructions with such conviction that for a moment, we almost believe her—until we notice the quiver behind the words, as though she’s also trying to convince herself.

Later, the staff allows her to take over the kitchen, letting her treat the residents as customers in her own restaurant. There’s a quiet beauty in this gesture—a moment of shared, gentle make-believe that affirms her dignity, even if it’s tinged with artifice.

Steve’s approach to his mother’s illness reflects the exhausting emotional calculus that comes with caregiving. He often plays along with her delusions—such as in the strikingly intimate opening scene, where Ruth mistakes his visit for a romantic date. It’s never stated outright that Steve is her son, but the way Benjamin modulates the moment—half amused, half heartbroken—says everything.

As delicate as it is clear-eyed, Familiar Touch evokes both the creeping dread of losing the life you’ve known and the bittersweet beauty of briefly glimpsing it again. Sarah Friedland crafts a debut that doesn’t flinch from the reality of decline but finds warmth and meaning in the remaining fragments of joy and connection.