In Fingernails, a couple’s affinity is certified by a test that can calculate the actual success of a relationship. Research centres are appointed to carry out this study, in the best of which Anna, an enthusiastic supporter of the method that makes her live a secure life as a couple with Ryan, begins to work. Anna is paired with Amir, an already experienced colleague. Soon, the woman realizes that love cannot be entrusted to a machine.
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Christos Nikou revealed his talent in Venice in 2020 with his debut feature, Apples, which was highly acclaimed by audiences and critics. Also, Cate Blanchett, that year’s president of the jury, wanted to produce the second film of this Greek filmmaker, who manages to blend different worlds easily.
Fingernails is a dystopian tale that beautifully combines comedy with social criticism.
It is structured in part like a video game full of cinematic in-jokes. As in his previous film, feelings are the story’s focus, as well as a thought on our present, in which human relationships are increasingly delegated to dating apps.
Nikou plays on this aspect, then lets it take a back seat to talk instead about human relationships and the many difficulties of keeping them alive. Fingernails is a film that makes lightness its strong point and the physical sensations it conveys from the screen.
Pain is necessary, as is the freedom to express oneself (again, there is a beautiful solo dance scene as in Apples), and well succeed in conveying all these emotions by the three main protagonists, Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White.
Special mention to Luke Wilson, an actor who would have deserved to be exploited much more in recent years. Here is the protagonist of an amusing self-quotationist in-joke and, above all, of a remarkable performance in the role of the founder of the love clinic that is now emptied of that feeling, suffering for himself and his clients.