Fingernails: Apple TV's Sci-Fi Romance Underscores Trials Of Love

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IN Christos Nikou’s Fingernails, a controversial test uses human fingernails to determine whether couples are in love. A certificate is awarded to those who test a hundred percent ‘positive’; they pursue a future together, secure that their emotions are legitimate. The rest of the couples — the fifty-percenters (meaning: only one of the two is smitten) and the zeroes (neither are) — are resigned to separation and heartbreak. The implication is that, in the near future, the fear of loneliness has reduced romantic love to not only a biological condition but also a social identity. People would rather have a machine erase the complex tissue connecting who they are to how they feel; they would rather seek a result than navigate a consequence. All it takes is a moment of physical pain — the pulling of a nail is every bit as agonising as it sounds — to simplify the abstractions of psychological attachment.

This sci-fi premise revolves around Anna (Jessie Buckley), a school-teacher who isn’t sure of her fully-certified bond with her boyfriend, Ryan (Jeremy Allen White). They live together in routine bliss, but something chips away at her. In search of answers, Anna starts working as an instructor at the Love Institute, a company where couples undergo ‘training’ to help them pass the test. This is where she meets Amir (Riz Ahmed), a fellow instructor whom she develops a connection with. Amir is the man responsible for devising a series of relationship-strengthening exercises. Some of them feature skydiving, locking gazes underwater, simulating a cinema-hall fire (“Watching love stories feels safe, but being in love does not”), an electric shock to literalise the pain of parting, and so on. He is soon disarmed by Anna’s reading of intimacy. When a young couple passes a blindfolded-smell test, she adds the finishing touch to his work by suggesting a shared shower to them.

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As an idea alone, Fingernails is a fascinating appraisal of modern love. Anna’s conflict is designed to question the very nature of feeling. Having passed the controversial test more than once, she wonders if comfort and compatibility are the only cornerstones of companionship. She also wonders if the validation of being in love weakens the continuity of loving: Has Ryan, emboldened by the verdict of a machine, taken their togetherness for granted? Can a fingernail — a bodily collection of dead cells — define the life-affirming anatomy of a soul? Is love a destination or a journey; a person or a desire; an attraction or an experience? The extraction of a fingernail becomes a parable for the pain of looking within; of confronting a truth that’s too shapeless to recognise. 

Nikou’s storytelling may not look profound, because the skeleton is that of a romantic triangle. The exposition is far from subtle. But there’s a lot to process. Its form is home to some difficult reckonings. Anna is in doubt because her partner has stopped striving; his complacence is rooted in the surety of what they share. She believes that relationships are about intent as much as content; they’re the licence to grow, not the guarantee to be. The test, then, becomes a narrative surrogate for real-world events like proposing, getting married or having a baby. The formalisation of a bond tends to evoke the illusion of certainty. And love thrives on uncertainty and mystery — on discovering the unknown rather than knowing our discovery. The plot pits these contradictions against one another. At one point, a client mentions that the best thing about his partner is that she makes him feel invisible; they blend into each other. At the same time, romance is also the quest to belong, to feel seen through the eyes of the world posing as a person.

But the remarkable thing about Fingernails is that it allows us to unlock our own biases. To be honest, watching this film is disorienting for someone like me. That’s because I’m not built to agree with what it conveys. I’ve spent years conflating love with stability, companionship with convenience. So I found myself empathising not with Anna — the restless protagonist — but with Ryan, the creature of trust and habit. It would’ve been easy to milk the Bear-shaped volatility of Jeremy Allen White, but Fingernails doesn’t demonise Ryan. He isn’t some sort of bright-eyed jerk with no perception of reality. However, it does suggest that Ryan is the victim of a narrative I’ve fetishised for too long: Love is the agency to be enough, not more. He assumes they are soulmates because there’s no evidence to prove otherwise. She resents him for settling. It’s also true that I see a lot of my partner in Anna, someone who always has the courage to challenge preconceived notions and predestined narratives. She isn’t afraid to be afraid; she has the instinct to believe that satisfaction can be worse than concern, that sometimes “being in love can be lonelier than being alone”.

Anna initially lies about her new job to Ryan because he might interpret it as a sign of her doubt — he doesn’t like to rock a boat that’s been sailing within the societal parameters of serenity. The test result is enough for him, just like the tag of a live-in relationship tends to be enough for me. When our feelings waver, I simulate a sense of loss to remind myself of what I have. I imagine a world without her — and the prospect of her absence is so crippling that I’m guilted back into unconditional love. The fear of nothing incites in me the gratitude for something. But the difference is that she imagines a world with me — and the prospect of my presence is so real that she dignifies us with the potential to love conditionally and completely. The fear of something incites in her the hope for everything. Maybe that’s why I get irritated with her habit of chewing on her fingernails. This subconscious gnawing signifies the stress of living. But I know it’s also the tension of loving. Perhaps I sense that it’s her way of testing — and interrogating — the symptoms of the heart. Conversely, I have a habit of mauling the skin around my nails. It doesn’t bother her at all. After all, only one of us has the nerve to dig deeper.

Stream Fingernails on Apple TV+