½*/****
starring Jessie Buckley, Jeremy Allen White, Riz Ahmed, Luke Wilson
written by Christos Nikou, Stavros Raptis, Sam Steiner
directed by Christos Nikou
by Walter Chaw If you ever wondered what a tuneless Yorgos Lanthimos rip-off would look like, Christos Nikou’s Fingernails has your answer. It’s lifeless, pointless, idiosyncratic in the basic, formula-bound way non-idiosyncratic people imagine idiosyncrasy to be like, and it staggers around trying to make sense of its internal logic before it’s too late–but it’s too late. There’s no plan here that makes sense, only a high concept that sounded smart one night and a trillion-dollar corporation desperate for something to fill the voracious maw of its content extruder. Fingernails is the stupid-person’s version of Dogtooth, substituting an explicitly violent and sexual fable for the dangers of oppressive belief systems with a conspicuous nothing-burger that, not knowing what it’s about or how to be about it, is predictably a dumpster fire that thinks it’s about the indomitability of love yet in execution is about nothing. The movie has going for it three of the very finest actors working right now in Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White–and it has going against it a script that feels like a first draft, desperate direction, and a technical presentation that, at least in its festival incarnation, was marred with flaws that exacerbated the impression the film’s brand is “undercooked.” Everyone deserved better.
Anna (Buckley) and Ryan (White) are the perfect couple. They know this because they’ve each had a fingernail plucked for testing at the “Love Institute” of new-age crackpot Duncan, whose organization has confirmed their relationship is “100%.” If this is sounding like a cheap Charlie Kaufman rip-off now and not simply a Lanthimos wannabe, well, you got me there, Hawkeye! The fingernail-testing machine provides three results: 100%, meaning both partners in a union are in love with each other; 50%, meaning just one is; and 0%, meaning neither is. Fingernails builds a world split between people who believe in the procedure and those who would prefer to, Gattaca-like, let love happen and leave technology out of diagnosing the mysterious functions of the heart. The opening title card, see, informs us that one of the first indicators of heart malfunction is the fingernail, and, well, you get it, right? How delightful. Not so delightful is Nikou’s dedication to multiple scenes of people pulling others’ and their own fingernails out long after the gimmick has become revolting. Even Cronenberg in The Fly only did the one fingernail. Imagine the version where Brundlefly peels off all ten at five-minute intervals and you’ll have a pretty good idea what Fingernails starts to feel like. Your mileage may vary. Maybe the sequel is a quirky sci-fi romcom where dozens of people get their eyes slit by a straight razor, Buñuel-style, to test perceptions of beauty. Gold, right? Who wouldn’t want to watch that over and over and over? Somebody get me in touch with Tim Cook.
Anna secretly gets a job at the institute, telling Ryan she’s landed a gig as an elementary-school teacher. Why does she lie? I have no idea. Neither does Ryan when he finds out. Neither does Anna when she’s caught. It’s a big fucking mystery, because the tech’s reach hasn’t been established, its acceptance has been suggested to be ambiguous, and ultimately what they do there isn’t widely understood anyway. Anna’s trainer is serious, taciturn Amir (Ahmed), and together they lead couples through a series of intimacy exercises designed to help clients fall in love prior to having their fingernails ripped from their beds. So the test isn’t just a compatibility test, it’s a test one takes after an immersive, The Lobster-like matchmaking program… But is there a way they can skip straight to the test? Because if there isn’t, why are existing couples allowed to “renew” their proof of love by pulling out additional fingernails? Later, Anna rips off another of her fingernails to see if she’s in love with someone else, and…and am I overthinking a metaphor for how love feels like ripping out your fingernails with pliers? I’m not here to kink shame, so, I guess. Here’s another thing to consider: towards the end, someone delivers the intended kill shot, and it’s along the lines of how sometimes people who are in loving relationships are more alone. I’m a sucker for poetic grace notes, but…huh?
Anyway, Anna falls in love with Amir, and Ryan frankly deserves better. There’s a weird bit of physical comedy midway through where Anna attaches electrodes to her body and shocks herself off her feet so that she can condition a visceral, Pavlovian response to Ryan going to work. It’s jarring–atonal, sure–but it’s also suspect for its reasoning. I mean, is love, according to Fingernails, dangerous codependency? Maybe that’s the thread the picture intends to unravel, how people mistake “love” for possession, but somehow I doubt it. It’s also not a timely dissection of cults and groupthink à la Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I don’t think Fingernails intends anything. It certainly doesn’t intend Anna to be this unlikeable, nor her “awakening” to be this callow and childish. Or maybe it does, who the fuck knows. If so, when Anna and Amir finally fuck, with Anna declaring her love by mutilating herself on the kitchen floor, it doesn’t land with the indie hipster profundity it probably did at 3 a.m. after a lot of weed. And what of poor, cuckolded Ryan, who doesn’t even get the dignity of an exit from the film? I do believe that Fingernails is convinced its gags are very funny, such as how some clients are afraid to jump out of airplanes shackled to their partners instead of jump instructors, or how one kid is able to find his partner while blindfolded just by smelling her after she’s been instructed not to shower for a few days, or how a Chinese dude and his girl proudly report copulating daily for an hour at a time. The picture is pleased with itself, in other words. “Smug” is another word that comes to mind. It’s like those millionaire mountaineers who proudly declare they’ve scaled Everest when really they’ve been dragged up the hill, half-unconscious, by Sherpas. Lanthimos is the Sherpa. Nikou’s merely along for the ride. How’s that for an analogy?
