‘Fingernails’ Review: Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed’s Chemistry is the High Point in Christos Nikou’s Analog Dating Dramedy | Toronto
Christos Nikou opens his newest film with a quote, or a common consensus in the scientific community: that the first signs of heart problems can be detected in the person’s fingernails. Set in an analog futuristic world, Fingernails sees most of human society dramatically transformed after the invention of a scientific test that can determine if two people are in love.
Couples that score 0% or 50% – meaning neither are in love or only one of them is – break up or divorce, while couples that score 100% – meaning both are in love – get married and live happily ever after. But therein lies the problem, that somehow getting a love certificate explains away everything else that must come with a relationship, making people fall into a loveless limbo where they no longer need to try at anything, since their love has already been proven and validated.
The consequences of finding a singular “objectivity” in love are about as absurd and dangerous as you might expect. One of these couples is Anna (Jessie Buckley) and Ryan (Jeremy Allen White). Despite them scoring 100% and having been together for years, Anna clearly doesn’t feel happy in the marriage. It also doesn’t help that despite White’s good looks, Ryan is a nothing burger of a partner.
This inspires Anna to start her new job at the love institute, the company responsible for creating the test, as she begins to work with Amir (Riz Ahmed) to discover and study the presence of love amongst new emerging couples who have yet to take the test, which is later revealed to be a queasy, darkly comedic gimmick of ripping out one’s nail and feeding it to an analog refrigerator-machine that beep-boops out a percentage result.
During all of these scenes in the love institute, where we get to see what kinds of tasks and exercises they carry out, the film works beautifully as an absurd satire on how far we are willing to go to somehow quantify and gauge our feelings – think The Lobster but less existential dread, with the loneliness and need for love from Her.
However, as the film progresses, it steers away from interrogating its world and focuses instead on Anna’s newfound feelings for her co-worker, as she struggles to pinpoint whether it’s just a workplace crush or if it’s love. Nikou directs these moments of loneliness beautifully. The cinematography and score maintains this moody, at-times suffocating atmosphere where our characters are trying to breathe and find comfort in each other. It makes for the occasional sweet interaction between Anna and Amir an intimate, nearly tragic experience. Both Buckley and Ahmed share great chemistry on screen.
But then the more the film went on, the more it became clear to me that the script has officially run out of cards to play. Despite Anna and Ryan sharing plenty of stiff moments together, plus one brief confrontation, the script doesn’t make room for a resolution or a reckoning. It is clear that Nikou is trying to tell us that falling in love is the easy part, and that happily ever after does not exist without both sides working hard at maintaining that love every day. Perhaps the most frustrating part of Fingernails is it’s more interested in Anna discovering new feelings for Amir, as opposed to her digging deep to rediscover how and why she fell in love with Ryan in the first place.
One of the highlights and most interesting turning points in the film involves the test machine malfunctioning. Though it works as a moment of suspense and is written in parallel to a crucial moment between two characters, it ended up a missed opportunity for Nikou to say something. Is this like when all the OS’ in Her decided to leave? Is there a “now what?” that human society must now address? On paper, it seems like it, but the film doesn’t take that leap.
Fingernails works because of its strong sense of world-building and tone. The very concept allows for discussions on relationships, commitments vs. compromises, and the pros and cons of routine in a marriage. The clean, retro production design and the gorgeous nighttime cinematography do an immaculate job of making this world feel lived in but emotionally hollow. Most of all, Buckley gives a terrific lead performance. But with the latter half of the film meandering around the same ideas over and over, I can’t help but see myself in all those couples who separated due to a test result – wondering what could’ve been.
Grade: C+
This review is from the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Apple Original Films will release Fingernails in select theaters and streaming globally on Apple TV+ on November 3, 2023.
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