Touch’s Screenwriter Found Something Remarkable in Adapting His Own Novel

In Touch’s production notes, director Baltasar Kormákur recounts that while “reading the novel Touch, I realized this was the love story that I had been looking for.” The novel’s author, Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, worked with Kormákur to transform his global bestseller into a film, adapting the story of an older man journeying across memories and continents to rediscover the woman he loved and lost nearly 50 years before. Variety writes, “Kormákur and Ólafsson, who share co-writing duties, make sure there’s never a dull, wasted moment.”

To create the screenplay, the writers had to transform the novel’s first-person narrative of Kristofer (Egill Olafsson) into an engaging tale of the older man’s journey from Iceland to England to Japan, and his experience as a young man (Pálmi Kormákur) falling in love with Miko (Kōki). In their collaboration, the two created what Variety calls “a uniquely powerful, humane film about people rebounding from the rubble of devastating losses, choosing courage and love.”

So we spoke with Ólafsson about the experience of writing the novel and then adapting it into a movie.

Touch is now playing in theaters, so get your tickets!

Where did the idea for the novel—and then the screenplay—come from?

I started writing it in March of 2020. My family and I live in New York, but we decided at the onset of Covid that we wanted to go to Iceland for what we thought would be just a couple of weeks. We got to our house in Iceland in mid-March, and by the end of March, I was already writing the novel. The story just came to me. Some of it had been percolating for a long time. I used to spend a lot of time in Japan in the ‘80s and ‘90s, often visiting the country eight or nine times a year. It was during one of those trips that I learned about Hibakushas, families who come from the people who survived the bombing of Hiroshima. That story, and the experience of Covid, all became part of the story. I finished the novel by the fall.

This is a very universal story, but are there aspects that are autobiographical?

I always relate to my characters. They set up shop in my head, and usually, I don't start writing until they have really taken over. At that point, it’s difficult for me to know how much is me and how much is fiction. I never went to London to study economics, but my brother did. He would bring back the latest Beatles albums to Iceland, so that era was very vivid to me. I did spend a lot of time in Japan when I was younger. I took a great interest in Japanese culture, art, and literature, so all that knowledge went into the film. I am sure that there is a lot of me in Kristofer.

You co-wrote the screenplay with Kormákur. How did that work?

When you're writing a book, you sit there by yourself, and it's just you. I see the screenplay as the place where the director and the author come together. We had a lot of fun. We never really had any disagreements. We were both focused on trying to come up with a screenplay that worked. Baltasar certainly changed aspects of the novel, but I think the screenplay is faithful to the book and everything that really matters.

The novel is written in the first-person from Kristofer’s perspective. How did you translate that into the screenplay?

I love going back and forth in my books and piecing things together. In a novel with a first-person narrator, you are relying on the narrator to tell you the truth. You learn a lot about people from what they tell you about themselves, but how do you translate that to the screen? For example, in the novel, Kristofer is not delusional, but he is not ready to tell us everything about himself when the book starts. In the movie, we had to slowly show that progression as Kristofer becomes more honest with himself. It is subtle, but you see how he comes to terms with his life and himself.

What surprised you in the final film?

I visited the set in England, Japan, and Iceland to watch the production, so I had a bit of an idea of what the film was going to be like. When I watched the film for the first time, I really tried to separate myself as a viewer from my role as the writer. I really loved the film. I was particularly moved by how pure the emotions in the film were. I remember there were only six or seven people in the screening room, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. The film isn’t sad, just moving.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.