Familiar Touch      Director: Sarah Friedland Cert: NoneGenre: DramaStarring: Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle Smith, Andy McQueen, H Jon BenjaminRunning Time: 1 hr 32 minsSarah Friedland’s sure-footed debut begins with a precise depiction of cultivated domesticity. Ruth Goldman (Kathleen Chalfant), a retired cookbook writer, moves through her sunny home with practised elegance: selecting clothes, preparing lunch and anticipating the arrival of a guest. There is a slight disconnect between action and intention: a momentary lapse here, a misplaced object there. When her visitor arrives, Ruth greets him as one might a gentleman caller. Only gradually and heartbreakingly does it become apparent that the man is her son and that he has come to accompany her to a care facility.That gentle but disorienting shift establishes the film’s central concern. Rather than observing dementia from the perspective of relatives, carers or medical professionals, Friedland places the viewer alongside Ruth. While no film can fully re-create the experience of cognitive decline, Friedland consistently attempts to inhabit Ruth’s fluctuating reality rather than reduce her to a diagnosis or a burden to be shouldered by others.Drawing on the writer-director’s own experience of working in elder care, this deserving winner of both director and actress prizes from Venice International Film Festival’s Orizzonti selection chronicles Ruth’s transition into an assisted-living community where moments of acuity, confusion, amusement and distress coexist. Her awareness ebbs and flows: one minute she assumes culinary authority in a communal kitchen, the next she struggles to recognise where she is. The delicately observed script remains attentive to these contradictions without hammering them into melodramatic shapes.Friedland is equally interested in the people who support residents. Carolyn Michelle brings warmth and complexity to Vanessa, a caregiver whose relationship with Ruth illustrates both the emotional demands and quiet rewards of the profession. The production’s collaboration with residents and staff from a real retirement community further underscores Friedland’s commitment to realism.Our cared-for population is suddenly a big concern in cinema. The two main characters of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden discuss the subject for more than three hours of that film’s running time. Anchored by Chalfant’s incredibly varied performance, Familiar Touch brings sentimentality and humanity to the theme. It acknowledges loss without overshadowing its protagonist, passionately insisting on personhood and dignity even as the heroine’s awareness drifts away.In cinemas from Friday, June 19th