The Big Picture

Touch
explores themes of love, loss, and redemption through a poignant journey of discovery.
The film weaves the past and present together beautifully, building emotional weight through nostalgic explorations.

Touch
develops a strong sense of place and time, with moving reveals and performances leading to a largely satisfying finale.

Confronting one’s own mortality is an inevitable part of life, of course, but that never makes it easier. It’s a natural time to reflect on opportunities and regrets, missteps, and roads not taken. These questions are complex ones to square, some of life’s biggest, but after them comes the hardest question still: what is there to do about it? In Touch, the beautiful new film by Baltasar Kormákur, an elderly widower’s brush with mortality sparks a journey to uncover perhaps the greatest mystery of his life: what happened to his lost first love, who disappeared without a trace 50 years prior? It’s a query that provokes a globe-spanning trek across both the world and the deep seas of memory.

Touch, adapted by Kormákur and Icelandic author Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson from the latter’s own book, is a meditative exploration of love, loss, nostalgia, and rediscovery that beautifully blends past and present, weaving them together for an emotional trek across time. While the journey in the present is what drives the narrative, it’s the nostalgic explorations of the past that carry much of the film’s emotional weight. Kormákur builds a vibrant world, capturing the restrained fury of young love with as much delicacy as he does the gentle exploration of new talents and the dispiriting claustrophobia of navigating strict rules and family traumas. It’s a poignant, transporting tale.

Touch (2024) “Touch” follows the journey of Kristófer, a widower who sets out to find his first love, Mako, who mysteriously disappeared 50 years ago. The film spans several decades and continents, delving into themes of love, loss, and redemption.Release Date July 12, 2024 Cast Egill Ólafsson , Kōki , Pálmi Kormákur Baltasarsson , Masahiro Motoki , Sigurður Ingvarsson , Yoko Narahashi , Masatoshi Nakamura , Meg Kubota Main Genre Drama Distributor(s) Focus Features , Universal Pictures Expand

What is ‘Touch’ About?

Touch follows Kristófer (Egill Ólafsson), an aging, solitary cook in a small seaside town in Iceland. Some time after the death of his wife, he’s merely flitting the time away: talking to his daughter Sonja (Harpa Elísa Þórsdóttir), singing in a choir, serving his customers, and coming home to a quiet, empty house. He visits a doctor about worrisome lapses in memory, and an MRI reveals a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s. The doctor informs Kristófer that, in cases like this, he normally recommends patients get their lives in order and resolve any unfinished business. A simple man with a simple life, there’s only one item left to address: a half-century ago, his first love Miko (Kōki) disappeared suddenly and without a trace. With his remaining time ticking away, Kristófer drops everything to head back to where they first met and beyond in hopes of squaring the past before it finally is too late. The film alternates between his present-day journey and recollections of courting Miko as a young man (his youthful self played by Palmi Kormakur), tracing the emergence of their meeting and growing relationship until a pivotal moment separates them for decades.

Dealing with lost love, mortality, and a sense of nostalgia for the past are, of course, classic themes in world literature and cinema alike. Here, Touch isn’t entirely novel from a thematic standpoint (in all fairness, it would be hard-pressed to find entirely new approaches to these central parts of the human experience), but it is introspective and insightful. In pivoting around the desire to find answers to the mystery of a lost love, rather than to simply reflect on it, Touch does nonetheless find an interesting way for the audience to see these themes with somewhat clearer eyes. The journey may be on a well-trod path to a familiar destination, but the view is worth the effort, especially in light of a set of memorable performances.

‘Touch’ Is a Poignant Exploration of Mortal Clarity and the Enduring Power of Love
Image via Focus Features

While the elder Kristófer sparks the narrative’s journey, it’s his younger self’s story that gives life to the film’s emotional core. We first meet him as a young radical and student in London, whose disaffection with a life of study prompts a spontaneous visit to a local Japanese restaurant in search of working-class employment. First, it’s a little insincere: he’s proving a point to both his classmates and, a bit, to himself. The job inquiry gets serious once Kristófer catches a fleeting glimpse of Miko, the vibrant daughter of the restaurant’s owner, Takahashi-san (Masahiro Motoki). It’s a little atypical for a Japanese restaurant in that era’s London to have a Nordic dishwasher, but the thoughtful, observant, and eager learner Kristófer increasingly wins the good-natured Takahashi-san over. Miko is a high-spirited soul, who clearly leans more towards the modern London of her era than she does to the Japanese culture her family left behind, causing considerable (but loving) tension between father and daughter. In these moments, Kormákur captures well the aura of the London of yore, alongside the deliberate pace and simple sensual pleasures of the restaurant. It’s a prime setting for growing youthful romance.

Palmi Kormakur plays young Kristófer with an intelligent, quiet vigor. He’s passionate, good-natured, and slightly unmoored, so it’s understandable that the young man is so susceptible to the call of young love. There are clear echoes of his youthful self in Egill Ólafsson’s portrayal of present-day Kristófer, slowed by age but retaining his inquisitive, observant nature and thoughtfulness. Kōki is a mystery as the young Miko: passionate but not wild, intelligent and presumably studious but with a lust for life. As the young lovers’ romance blossoms, they fall together so naturally that the audience intuitively feels Kristófer’s shock when Miko and Takahashi-san suddenly leave London, leaving no clues as to their destination. The cast here contributes to the impact of the separation, giving a solidity to the elder Kristófer’s drive to see his questions answered, no matter what it takes. Touch is at least as much about the journey as it is the destination, so there won’t be spoilers about the exact resolution. Suffice it to say that once the elder Kristófer makes discoveries as to what happened in that fateful era and why, the complexity and weight of life for Japanese expats in that era comes to the fore in heartbreaking ways, and Kormákur ably lands them while building to a mostly satisfying and emotional conclusion.

Related ‘Adrift’ Director Baltasar Kormakur on Why He Used Non-Linear Storytelling Plus, he reveals what he was willing to do to get cinematographer Robert Richardson and what he learned from test screenings.

Touch weaves between timelines well, with flowing explorations of the past folded in with interludes of the present, each driving different aspects of the narrative forward. As a narrative, the film’s biggest issue emerges in the film’s finale, as Kristófer’s journey reaches its end. What he discovers is emotional and satisfying, but after such a long and carefully paced journey, many revelations and monumental events are packed into what feels like a short amount of narrative time. It’s not quite rushed, but the film does noticeably hasten exactly when that leisurely pacing is needed most. It’s still a satisfying ending, and one that’s well set up, but it dampens the emotional impact of important moments that the film spends a lot of time building towards. Additionally, elder Kristófer exhibits a sort of distance from his daughter throughout the film that sits uneasily by some of the film’s themes, and it would be useful to allow a little clarity around that singular plot point. These are relevant but small criticisms, however, in light of a film that capably explores issues like mortality, love, and longing, and does so with intelligence.

‘Touch’ Is a Thoughtful, Frequently Moving Trek
Image via Focus Features

Dealing with the nostalgia of past loves has inspired a wide array of excellent stories, most recently Celine Song’s wonderful exploration of unmet romantic potential in Past Lives. There are inevitable comparisons to be made between Touch and the latter, but the narrative journeys and imports are wildly different between the two films. The elder Kristófer’s hopeful pursuit of, at the very least, some sort of end-of-life closure is well-balanced against the youthful passions and hopes of his younger self. Here, the differences between the two provide a thoughtful but not mournful opportunity to reflect on the inevitability of time and the often fleeting, yet also somehow eternal experience of love. Through the development of an excellent sense of place, a set of strong performances, and its grounding in the recognition of mortality, Touch stands out as a singular journey worth taking.

Touch creates a beautiful, welcoming world that’s enjoyable to get lost in. The careful, often serene moments in the restaurant are given plenty of space, while the young lovers’ growing affections are backed by strong performances and a well-developed pace. The journey of the elder Kristófer is also enjoyable, as he navigates the experience in the present, often having unexpected live-in-the-moment experiences along the way. Still, the film’s methodical pace somewhat falters when it’s most important not to. Major reveals are passed through too quickly, and there are missed opportunities to tease out the emotional implications of the journey’s finale. It doesn’t land in an unsatisfying way, but it’s difficult not to be left with a few lingering questions and a feeling that something important hasn’t been given full resolution.

Still, Touch is easily a journey worth taking. It has a strong sense of place and performers with real chemistry and emotional resonance, and it finds ways to deal with time-honored, weighty themes in thoughtful ways. It may not be exploring wildly new ground, but the journey is a pleasant and notable one with a moving, largely satisfying finale (though it would benefit from more breathing room). It’s a film that subtly reminds the audience to slow down, be present, and enjoy what one has, because it can be gone in an instant, while also encouraging hope. It’s a beautiful cinematic journey and one not to be missed.

REVIEW Touch (2024) Touch is a poignant journey of discovery for a character facing life’s end, with strong performances and a moving finale, though the careful pacing starts to falter at the end.ProsTouch develops an excellent sense of place and time, especially in the main character’s earlier experiences.Egill Olafsson has a grounded, nuanced outing as elder Kristofer, while Koki and Palmi Kormakur have strong chemistry and give passionate, layered performances.The film builds towards an ending with moving reveals as Kristofer’s journey concludes, leaving an overall strong impression at the finale. ConsTouch does lose some of its careful pacing at the finale, and could benefit from more thoughtful story development and narrative tempo as it concludes.

Touch is now playing in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes near you.

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