There are points in life when you look back on your path and wonder what might have been if you’d taken a different turn. Touch is such a film, but far from a maudlin affair of regret or resignation, it is a resonant tale of love and acceptance. It’s the kind of movie that feels like hope in hopeless times. Keep all this in mind as you read what Touch is all about, because it certainly sounds like it’d be a heart-wrencher, not a heart-warmer.
In Iceland, as the COVID-19 pandemic begins to cause lockdowns worldwide, widower Kristofer (Egill Ólafsson) is showing the early signs of dementia. While his adult daughter pleads for him to go to doctor’s appointments and stay safely at home, he books an impromptu flight to London. There, he swans from a near-empty hotel — where the workers give him hand sanitizer and serious side-eye — to a tattoo shop, where he gets a Japanese phrase inked on his arm. But why is he here? He’s searching for the one that got away, and there’s no time like the present.
Based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s novel Touch (or Snerting, in its native Icelandic), this touching drama weaves a story of past and present, unfurling Kristofer’s intrepid quest while flashbacks to 50 years before reveal who he seeks and what happened between them. Writing and directing is Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur, who has agilely lept genres from crime thrillers like Contraband and 2 Guns to the romantic and surreal biopic Adrift to the Idris Elba–fronted action-adventure Beast. With Touch, he offers a film that traverses decades and the globe with a pace that is steadily propulsive and a sense of romantic enchantment that is contagious.
Touch offers a story of resplendent first love.
Credit: Lilja Jonsdottir / Focus Features LLC
As I was unfamiliar with the novel, early flashbacks to a warm-hued world of red and gold didn’t immediately unlock for me who Kristofer was seeking. I watched this smiling old gentleman meander down London’s charming streets, looking upon shops already shuttered or faces covered in protective masks, unsure what exactly he sought. But as Touch leaps back to a twentysomething Kristofer (the filmmaker’s son Pálmi Kormákur), a pleasant mystery began to unfold for me. A tall, lanky young man with long hair and a rebellious spirit, Kristofer threatens to quit his university education because of the administration’s grim response to student protesters. When a smug (and posh) friend challenges his resolve, pointing out that the Japanese restaurant they’re walking by is hiring — why not apply? — Kristofer coolly walks inside. What began as a game becomes serious soon after he meets the proprietor, a diligent chef, devoted father, and lover of haiku poetry named Takashi (Masahiro Motoki).
Within the charming kitchen, Takashi invites Kristofer not only into his employ but also into the family he’s built in the restaurant, which includes an opera-singing cook, a cheerfully nosy waitress, and his only daughter, Miko (Kōki), a college student determined to learn about the world beyond her father’s protective reach. Perhaps predictably, Kristofer falls for Miko, but also for this community that welcomes him in, and a culture he is hungry to understand. Flirtations happen alongside cooking and language lessons, with the Icelandic man learning to express himself through haiku. Rather than a story of colonization or appropriation, Touch offers a sensitive tale of cross-culture love and respect. But as Kristofer gets closer to Miko, he also comes closer to learning a family secret that will change everything.
Pálmi Kormákur and Kōki are perfectly paired in a splendid romance.
Credit: Lilja Jonsdottir / Focus Features LLC
Touch is an unusual romance in that its male protagonist is not an active pursuer of the object of his affections. In his memories, Kristofer is not some dashing romantic hero, nor is he the pestering sort from ’90s rom-coms who lightly stalks a girl to show his interest. Instead, he gives himself over to this place and this experience, saying yes to what is offered. Abandoning the path of college and snobby white students, he takes the job of busboy. He accepts the opportunity to learn how to cook Japanese food. He welcomes the chance to learn the language and its poetry. While he quietly yearns for Miko, he doesn’t chase her or assume her interest should mirror his. But she sees in him what we viewers do: Here is a sincere man with a curious mind, an undeniable John Lennon allure, and a deep wealth of love.
In this role, Pálmi Kormákur exudes a quiet contentedness, his soft smile clearly communicating Kristofer’s joys in this cozy kitchen and its lovely family. But when Miko is nearby, his eyes gain focus, as if she is the moon, radiant and pulling the tides that direct his life. By contrast, Kōki comes in with a sharpness, a sharp wit, and an attitude that screams of 1969 rebellion, reflected in her miniskirts and maxi ideas. She brings conflict into the kitchen, pulling Kristofer into the ongoing father-daughter battle that is waged there. At first, this tactic is the crude tool of a young adult seeking peer support in a squabble with her father over dating. But eventually, Touch reveals the deeper roots of this tension. Kōki, glowing with charisma, not only captures how easy it is for Kristofer to fall hard for Miko, but also gently unfolds the safely guarded wounds of a daughter harboring generational trauma and a profound fear of alienation.
In bursts, their love is the sunny kind of romantic meals, sun-dappled day trips, and long, loving hours in a battered bed. It’s only in the present that Kristofer can realize what his rose-colored glasses overlooked back then.
Egill Ólafsson delivers a slyly brilliant turn in a wonderful third act.
Credit: Lilja Jonsdottir / Focus Features LLC
At first glance, the elder Kristofer might seem a bit deluded by his romantic notions. The world is falling to pieces around him with shutdowns and fears, yet he goes about unmasked and unbothered. It’s not stubborn politics or a defiance against science. Cinematically, Baltasar Kormákur is committed to showing us the literally brave face of his hero, so we don’t miss a single emotion. Ólafsson’s face often wears a cozy smile, but behind his eyes flicker hope, pain, and shock as he follows the path his younger self could not find. As this aging gentleman moves from old stomping grounds to new terrain, there’s the thrill of discovery but also the fear his quest will be in vain. Ólafsson carries this tension in hands that grip a hopeful bouquet of flowers and a step that’s slowed with age but remains as earnest as a schoolboy’s.
Here I am tempted to spoil the movie for you, to set a worried mind at ease. But that might be a disservice to Touch, even though the film functions less on the tension of the quest and more on the emotional thrust of a man coming to terms with what was. But if you need to know if this story has a happy ending, the answer is yes-ish. By that, I mean Touch has a final act that is sublimely earned by its setup. Addressing issues as far-ranging as dementia, grief, pandemic, broken hearts, and even historical tragedies, this tender drama finds the light, not to ignore the darkness, but to survive it. And this approach bolsters the final sequence, which is a deceptively simple depiction of deep love. However, it’s easy to imagine audiences raised on Hollywood’s brand of happy endings feeling a bit bereft by it, as Touch doesn’t go the sugar-coated candy sweet route. But to do that would be emotionally dishonest in a film that’s anything but.
In the end, Touch is a profoundly moving drama about love in many forms. Kristofer’s story is centered on romantic love, but through his journey, Kormákur displays an array of loves, be it the different bonds that form between friends who become family, or food that becomes a home to us, or a language that speaks to feelings we didn’t know how to name. There are many flashier movies to see this summer, but none will hit you quite like Touch.
Touch is in theaters July 12.
