Familiar Touch

The debut feature of writer/director Sarah Friedland stars stage actress Kathleen Chalfant in a magnificently understated performance as an octogenarian in cognitive decline transitioning to her new life in an assisted living facility. Comedian H. Jon Benjamin gives an equally subtle and sympathetic turn as her son, as does the supporting cast playing the folks who work at the facility. But the film belongs to Chalfant, who crafts a character most of us have experience with, yet we rarely see on film. The film finds moving drama in the everyday details of navigating relationships with dignity in the final stages of life.