Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch is a moving feature film debut that rewards the viewer’s patience with a humane portrait of ageing, memory, and autonomy. Set almost entirely in the contained world of Bella Vista, an assisted-care home, it paints an unsentimental but not unhopeful picture of an elderly woman’s induction into what she comes to realise are the last years of her life.

H. Jon Benjamin and Kathleen Chalfant in Familiar Touch

Broadway star Kathleen Chalfant is Ruth, an elegant octogenarian and skilled cook navigating the slow drift between choice and circumstance. We meet her in her kitchen, methodically making lunch for a visitor, Steve (H. Jon Benjamin). During their halting conversation, it becomes apparent that Ruth has memory issues. The man she so gently flirts with is actually her son.

She is also unaware that this is the day Steve is taking her to Bella Vista. She arrives under the impression that it is some kind of hotel.

Friedland’s direction invites us into Ruth’s world through eloquent command of framing, camera height, pace, and sound. We are made to share in...