Fingernails

Available on Apple TV+.

Christos Nikou writes and directs this dark “love story”. Anne (Jesse Buckley) and Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) are a couple who live in a world where love is scientifically tested. A positive test removes uncertainty in realtionships, or at least that’s the idea. Anne, an out of work teacher, gets the opportunity to work at a Love training centre, which helps people learn to love before they test. Here Anne is paired with Amir (Riz Ahmed), who is to be her mentor as she learns the job. But the longer they work together Anne’s feelings towards him begin to change and raise questions about the accuracy of the love test.

Fingernails is 2/3rds a good film, a Black Mirror episode that builds an intriguingly dark romcom, if that’s a thing, but runs out of steam by its final act.

Set in an unspecified time in the near past, it looks at “love”, with a bizarre fingernail extraction based test, and peoples desperation to have scientific proof of their compatibility. And for most of the film it uses its premise well to tell a story that is unsettling and kept me intrigued with a feeling that something was amiss.

Jesse Buckley and Riz Ahmed’s excellent performances are key to that, both outwardly happy, but an undercurrent of something not being quite right in their own lives. They are also well supported by Allen White, as the “complacent” partner and Luke Wilson as the head of the Love institute, who adds to that feeling of unease.

But ultimately it fails to fully execute on the good work of the first two acts. That feeling of unease, that there is something going on that we can’t see, disapates and we end up with characters making decisions that made me stop caring or been interested in them. Which is a pity as the setup had been intriguing.

Fingernails is a dark romcom with two strong central performance. It builds an intriguing premise, which has you ill at ease. But it runs out of steam by the final act and delivers a weak ending. Worth a watch for the first bit, can take or leave the end.