52 Films by Women Vol 8. 49. Familiar Touch (Director: Sarah Friedland)

Pictured: Ruth Goldman (Kathleen Chalfant) adjusts to life in an assisted living facility in writer-director Sarah Friedland's film, 'Familiar Touch'. Still courtesy of Venice Film Festival.

In the UK there is legislation going through Parliament to allow for assisted dying, to be utilised when quality of life is diminished through ill health. As you watch Familiar Touch, writer-director Sarah Friedland’s depiction of an elderly woman, Ruth Goldman (Kathleen Chalfant, magnetic) transferred to an assisted living facility – don’t call it a community because people don’t really mix – you think, surely the scope for assisted dying should be wider. At what point should life no longer be prolonged? Surely, when it is no longer your own, when you exercise no agency, when you are administered to rather than consciously exercise choice. On her first morning in the facility, Ruth asks, ‘may I see the menu?’ ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she is told. But it really should.

The film begins with Ruth with her back to us, selecting something to wear for the day. She shuffles through hangers as if moving beads on an abacus, a quick movement. She gets to the end of the selection and moves back to the middle, finally choosing a top. We feel her difficulty. What should I wear? For whom? Is it the right occasion?

We finally meet her face-to-face, as it were, in her kitchen preparing breakfast. As we discover later, food is important to her. She is preparing her signature dish, which involves chopping and seasoning. As we watch her from the other side of the kitchen counter, we anxiously note her pause. We can’t see the ingredients, rather note the appearance of a slice of toast, which she inserts into a rack. She is joined by her son (H. Jon Benjamin in a cameo) who looks old enough to be her husband. ‘Are you seeing someone?’ she asks him. ‘I’m married,’ he tells her. ‘Are you?’ he asks. ‘I’m married too.’ They barely tuck into their food before he informs her that he’s taking her on a trip. Once installed in the passenger seat, he tells her, ‘hold on, I forgot my jacket.’ Returning to the house, he exits moments later carrying a suitcase. ‘If you had told me, I would have packed,’ she tells him. Her son has done her packing for her.

When they arrive at the Bella Vista Home for Assisted Living, her son explains that this is where she will reside. ‘We visited it before,’ he tells her. Ruth has no recollection but does not protest. She intuits how she is perceived, suffering from dementia, losing her memory. She challenges Brian the doctor (Andy McQueen), giving her date of birth as 6^th March 1937, and her home address in Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. She launches into a recipe for Borscht, her hands animated as she lists the ingredients, setting out how they are utilised. ‘I wouldn’t be able to do that if I were one of those,’ she tells him triumphantly. Brian looks at her sympathetically but does not humour her. The evidence is elsewhere.

At breakfast, she is told that she is not in a restaurant. She calls to two staff who do not immediately respond. When she is given a plate that contains scrambled eggs, she tells the server, ‘I didn’t order eggs.’

Ruth’s orientation borders on the surreal. In one scene, the residents are given virtual reality headsets and instructed to perform a task. We don’t see what they see, but Ruth completes it quickly, as if it were a lap of the pool using her favoured stroke. Taking off her headset while others in the group keep on theirs, she is joined by a woman who has also removed her headset. They play virtual catch, both hyper-aware of the absurdity of the exercise. It is one of the rare moments of levity that isn’t tinged with anxiety. In most other scenes, we’re never sure how it will play out. As in Nightbitch, we are plunged deeper into the protagonist’s estrangement.

In one scene, this estrangement is abundantly clear. Ruth enters the kitchen determined to help. She isn’t restrained, rather asserts her authority in the kitchen, putting herself to work slicing grapefruit. A nurse, Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle Smith), takes a seat in the kitchen. She is carrying a stack of textbooks. Ruth tells her to sit quietly while she makes her breakfast. Brian appears. Ruth tells him not to bother her. He is astonished. ‘I am her supervisor. I can bother her.’ ‘Not in my kitchen,’ she snaps. ‘You’re quite the chef,’ Brian tells her. ‘I’m a cook not a chef,’ explaining how she learnt in her grandmother’s kitchen. ‘Same as me,’ says Brian. Ruth serves Vanessa scrambled eggs with a side of grapefruit and toast cut into triangles standing upright, one leaning against the other. On an empty curve in the plate, Ruth squeezes dots of tomato ketchup. The decoration seems to the viewer surplus to requirements. As the same breakfast is served to Bella Vista residents, Ruth stands behind a door with unbridled glee.

When presented with a paper cup with five pills in it, Ruth expresses alarm. She doesn’t want to ingest anything that she does not need. The nurse pours them out onto the table to explain what each one does. One is a blood-thinner, another is a multi-vitamin, a third performs a function but is also a multi-vitamin, and so on. Convinced, Ruth puts them back in the cup and swallows them with one gulp.

In another scene, Ruth notices a woman with a food clip in her hair. Why such a clip? The woman does not notice it. In assisted living, if it ids close to what you are used to, it’s good enough.

Ruth takes an interest in Vanessa. She recites a list of ingredients to her. Vanessa starts to cry. Ruth reminds her of her mother, who has passed. Ruth gives her a hug. At this point, Ruth’s life has meaning – she can comfort others. However, in another scene, she is as far from Vanessa as she could ever be, looking out from her balcony and seeing Vanessa and Brian in the distance. The staff share their own world of concerns.

Another moment of surreal estrangement features Ruth in the swimming pool, on her own, with floats on her legs, her head supported by an unidentified member of staff. Ruth closes her eyes. Eventually she floats by herself to the edge of the pool. She is then addressed by Vanessa, whose head appears upside down. ‘It’s time for you to get out of the pool,’ Ruth is told. ‘Just one minute,’ Ruth replies. She is tranquil but then accedes to the request. In the next scene, we see Ruth with a towel wrapped around her, shivering as she waits to use the shower. The temperature of the water is tested before she is allowed to stand under it.

Valentine’s Day is particularly testing. ‘Don’t let age be a barrier to sex,’ reads a poster in Brian’s office. In the morning, the residents make cards. They resemble primary school children. Their work is similarly infantile. Ruth does not make a card, rather writes out a series of ingredients. Vanessa helps her to select an outfit. She is shown the room, set up for speed dating. ‘Who’s ready for a date?’ Cue cheers. ‘Who’s ready for five dates?’ Cue more cheers. Ruth is shocked. She flees the center, taking a long walk. She stands outside a restaurant, looking at a group of young men inside. The scene is presented from Ruth’s side of the window. By the time they notice her, she moves on. She visits a market, positioning a red lettuce in a sea of green lettuces, then placing a green lettuce on top of a selection of red lettuces. Eventually she selects an assortment of fruit and vegetables. When she is asked to pay, Ruth points two fingers at the cashier. ‘Your money or your life?’ The cashier is not amused. Ruth goes through her pockets, taking out pieces of paper. Eventually, Brian and Vanessa arrive. ‘You got me in a lot of trouble,’ Vanessa scolds her. ‘How could you run off like that?’ ‘It’s not my home,’ Ruth replies. Before she returns to Bella Vista, Ruth names each of the fruits and vegetables she attempted to buy, the produce lined in plastic bags on the rear bonnet of a parked car. While she demonstrates her cognitive ability, Ruth misses the bigger picture.

Ruth’s earlier test, to name as many words as possible beginning with the letter ‘f’, articulates her problem better. She starts with words beginning ‘fr’, then moves to ‘ph’ words like ‘phantasm’. Eventually, she lists words beginning with ‘f’ and a vowel (like ‘feels’). At no point does she say ‘family’.

In another test, she says ‘the dog is under the car’ in multiple different ways, giving each sentence a different intonation, as if squeezing alternative meanings out of the observation. She struggles to convince the doctor that she doesn’t have a problem.

Near the end, Vanessa departs. Ruth perceives this as temporary, but for everyone else it is permanent. The reason for her departure is unclear. Perhaps she passed her exams. Maybe she found it hard to be around Ruth. She misses the President’s Day celebrations (around the time of Ruth’s own birthday). However, Ruth’s son attends. When a piece of music is played, he goofs on the impromptu dance floor and then invites her to join him.

Earlier, in a rare scene that doesn’t feature Ruth, her son orders the clearing out of her house. His daughter tries on Ruth’s coat. ‘You look just like her,’ he observes, and we agree. Her son finds Ruth’s recipe books, marvelling at a menu for a 1969 protest march embossed, ‘Hell no, we won’t go’.

In the final scene, Ruth is examined and struggles to put on her top. It is unclear whether she has accepted her condition.

Filmed in a real-life assisted living facility, Familiar Touch oozes verisimilitude. Most of the action takes place without music, with one exception, a song by Dionne Warwick to which Ruth and her son dance. If the observational drama lacks a satisfactory ending, it is because there isn’t one. However, as a film it satisfies by making us contemplate the abyss of old age long enough to rethink it.

Reviewed at Leiden International Film Festival, Netherlands, Trianon Cinema Screen One, 11:15am screening