Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.An old-school weepie smothered in a syrupy string score, Touch is an unexpected offering from Icelandic action director Baltasar Kormákur, who has made his name pitting humans against nature: the Himalayas in Everest, the sea in Adrift, a rogue lion in Beast. Here, the hero, 71-year-old restaurateur Kristofer (Egill Olafsson), has a much quieter fight on his hands. His adversary is Alzheimer’s, which he tries to stall by doggedly reciting his restaurant’s menu to himself every morning.One thing he never forgets, however, is the lost love of his youth: Miko. She worked weekends at her father’s Soho restaurant and the twenty-something Kristofer — having dropped out of the London School of Economics, determined to join the proletariat — washed dishes there while cursing the Thatcher government. Kormákur revisits these altogether more thrilling times in long episodes, neatly weaving them with the story of the older Kristofer’s resolve to tie up his life’s loose ends.Pálmi Kormákur, the director’s angel-faced son, plays the young Kristofer; Miko is played by songwriter and model Kōki. Both are tyro actors whose occasional hesitations match their characters’ tentative slide into love; their charm as a couple brightens up a story that is otherwise achingly predictable. You know from the start that young Kristofer will come to work one day to find both father and daughter gone, apparently back to Japan. His heart is duly broken.When he belatedly sets off on their trail, it is 2020. Covid hits, and the portals between countries start to snap shut. Not that there is any great sense of urgency; Olafsson, who has Parkinson’s in real life, seems weighed down almost to a standstill by sheer despondency. Kormákur’s direction, however, keeps the surrounding story moving towards a flurry of resolution. Everything goes back to Hiroshima, of course — the catch-all for any foreigner’s Japanese story. Touch is perfectly watchable, just don’t expect any of the Icelander’s usual volcanic surprises.★★★☆☆In UK cinemas from August 30
