In cinemas; Cert 12A Koki and Palmi Kormakur in a scene from 'Touch'. Photo: Universal Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur takes a step back from the actioners ( Two Guns , Everest , etc) for this sedately powerful romantic saga about closure. It tells of Kristofer (Egill Olafsson), a widower whose ailing health spurs him to set out from Reykjavik and find the one that got away.
Arriving in London on the eve of the pandemic, he is cast back five decades to when, as a disillusioned college dropout, he worked in the kitchen of a Japanese bar. In tenderly appointed flashbacks, we see young Kristofer (Kormakur’s son Palmi) fall not only for Japanese culture but also for the boss’s beautiful daughter Miko (played by Japanese pop star Koki). Love blooms between the pair, but an unspoken trauma sits just behind Miko and her kind father (Masahiro Motoki).
When Kristofer arrives at work one day to find the restaurant shut and the family returned to Japan, it becomes the life-long heartache he now seeks to resolve in the winter of his years. Between its braided time frames, novelistic pace, and beautiful cast, Touch is an uncommonly poignant drama that balances rich sentimentality with more harrowing themes. Only cynics will resist a swoon or three.
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