by Mark Demetrius
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Kathleen Chalfont, Carolyn Michelle, H. Jon Benjamin, Andy McQueen
Intro:
Chalfont’s consistently superb performance makes the film worth seeing …
There have been more than a few films about dementia, all of them moving, if only for their subject matter. Familiar Touch is no exception, the sufferer in question here being octogenarian Ruth (veteran stage and TV actress Kathleen Chalfant). In the opening scene, Ruth is preparing for what she thinks will be a date, but the man in question is actually her son Steve (H. Jon Benjamin). She doesn’t recognise him or even remember that she is a mother.
So far, so disconcerting. But what follows is an unexpectedly subtle mixture of the sad and the whimsical. Steve takes Ruth to live in the Bellavista, a very upmarket care home, where her delusions seem to give her almost as much pleasure as pain. When allowed to cut up some food in the kitchen, for example, she thinks she is the boss and still a professional cook, and her level of expertise about that remains formidable. Whatever mood Ruth is in at a given point — lost, confident, frustrated, depressed or just wryly amused — Chalfont is utterly convincing.
The problem here is essentially with the whole rather than its parts. There’s nothing wrong with the Bellavista seeming plush and pleasant — such places exist, and the movie was actually shot in one — but the lily is gilded to the point where everything and everyone comes across as a tad too contented or too nice. None of the other residents appears to be especially ‘far gone’ or distraught — though admittedly we don’t see much of them — and none of the staff members is very disagreeable.
Familiar Touch is not up there with the great films on its theme, such as The Father. Its determinedly slow pace, quasi-documentary feel, and light touch add up to a double-edged sword of both atmosphere and tedium. But the concentration on Ruth’s own perspective is effective; we ‘hear’ the seaside sounds that she imagines while floating in the swimming pool, and the David Hockneyesque use of bright colours and clarity is a great counterpoint to her ‘blurred’ perspective. Chalfont’s consistently superb performance makes the film worth seeing — though not unmissable.
