‘Touch’: Review

Dir: Baltasar Kormákur. Iceland/UK. 2024 120mins

A dementia diagnosis in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic is the catalyst for taciturn Icelandic restaurateur Kristofer (Egill Ólafsson) to close his Reykjavik restaurant and travel to London in the hopes of reuniting with a Japanese woman he loved and lost there 50 years previously. This may sound, on paper, like the basis for a mawkish tearjerker — and there are moments of high emotion — but director Baltasar Kormákur and his actors err on the side of restraint, delivering a balanced, absorbing human drama.

Balanced, absorbing human drama

Kormákur, known for action movies like Everest and Adrift, returns here to the character-driven roots of his 2000 debut 101 Rekyavik. Released in the US on July 12 and the UK on August 30 and buoyed by positive reviews, Touch could attract audiences looking for more adult fare than, say, Despicable Me 4 (which opens on the same date in the US). It should eventually also have a long tail on streaming.

In a brisk opening sequence, we see septuagenarian Kristofer receive the news that he is in the early stages of dementia. Kristofer, who lives alone in Reykjavik following the death of his wife some years ago, takes in this information in a typically stoic manner. Icelandic actor Ólafsson, who himself lives with Parkinson’s, brings a quiet gravitas to the role. Kristofer’s decision to leave his home and travel to London, in the hopes of tracking down the Japanese woman he fell in love with in 1969, may be impulsive — particularly given that it’s 2020, with pandemic lockdown looming and borders closing — but it never comes across as foolhardy. This is not a man desperate for one last fling, but someone trying to find closure before it’s too late.

Quickly, the screenplay by Kormákur and Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (who wrote the source novel) throws us into a flashback of Kristofer (here played by Pálmi Kormákur, the director’s son) as a charismatic, idealistic student at London School Of Economics. Growing tired of his ‘bourgeois’ studies, which are at odds with his Marxist ideologies, he takes a job as a pot washer in Japanese restaurant Nippon — attracted as much by Miko (model Kōki Kimura), the pretty daughter of resturant owner Takahashi-san (Masahiro Motoki), as he is by the desire to earn an honest wage.

These extended flashbacks are shot by Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson in a softer tone with occasional moments of lens flare, which emulate the hazy warmth of memories, the sepia tint of nostalgia. Set to a peppy, instantly recognisable period soundtrack (John Lennon, The Zombies), these are also bustling with life and noise — a stark contrast to the sequences set during 2020, where Kristofer wanders empty streets and is the only guest in his London hotel. Human connection becomes even more impossible, which makes an extended sequence in which Kristofer befriends a fellow widower in a Japanese sake bar all the more poignant. 

There are also shorter flashbacks to moments of Kristofer’s time in Iceland with his wife. Editor Sigurður Eyþórsson deftly weaves these throughout the narrative so that the the different timelines work together to create a full picture of a life. That’s helped enormously by Högni Egilsson’s gentle score, which acts as connective tissue, and the quality of the performances. It’s easy to see how the idealistic, poetic young Kristofer would have grown into the more pragmatic older man, and how his experiences with Miko have shaped his entire life. The chemistry between the two youngsters is palpable, given extra charge by the fact that they must keep their burgeoning relationship secret from Takahashi-san, who wields authoritarian control over Miko’s personal life. 

And this is where the story widens. The family fled Hiroshima in 1945, and then, after the death of Miko’s mother, moved from Tokyo to London, attempting to escape the stigma that hangs over Miko, whose mother was pregnant with her at the time the atomic bomb was dropped on their home city. That still casts a shadow over her life in London, despite her defiant attitude and succession of Mary Quant mini skirts, and ultimately drives a wedge between her and Kristofer.

The majority of the film has a low-key urgency, events driven by the ticking clock of Kristofer’s diagnosis and the tightening grip of the pandemic, all building to the point where Kristofer tracks down Miko (now played by the film’s casting director Yoko Narahashi), living back in Hiroshima. Yet, as their story comes full circle and long-held emotions finally come to the fore, there’s a sense of stillness, of peace — and, despite uncertainties past and present — of new beginnings.