Even with the benefit of hindsight, it can still be difficult to fathom what the historical fulcrum February and March 2020 represented. A paradoxical time when normal life continued largely unbothered while mutterings of a new disease called “coronavirus” gradually crescendoed before turning into an overnight roar. When our biggest concerns were delayed NBA games and Tom Hanks’ inability to finish “Elvis,” it was unthinkable that humanity was on the brink of a pandemic that took seven million lives and shattered many of the social norms upholding the polite society that we had long taken for granted.
Most of us had no idea what was coming, so we wore our masks on half-empty flights while the world quietly prepared to shut down around us. It’s against this backdrop of uncertainty that Kristofer (Egill Ólafsson), an aging Icelandic widower in Baltasar Kormákur’s “ Touch ,” gets the news that nobody ever wants. While his dementia is still in the early stages, a doctor makes it abundantly clear that he’s down to the last few grains of sand in his hourglass.
With his mental faculties set to plummet in the coming months, he’s advised to settle any unfinished business or looming presidential campaigns and find a way to make peace with the life that he’s lived. Sensing that his world is about to shut down in more ways than one, Kristofer ignores his stepdaughter’s pleas to shelter in place and heads to London for a final trip down memory lane. The rest .
