PUTTING LOVE TO THE TEST
Greek director Christos Nikou’s ‘Fingernails’ is a sci-fi film about love and artificial intelligence,
What is love? It’s an eternally slippery question that’s fuelled the creative output of humanity for much of our existence. It’s a question that, even in an age in which machines seem on the verge of being able to answer other big questions, still seems beyond their remit.
The marriage of artificial intelligence (AI) to the enigma of relationships provides the basis for Greek director Christos Nikou’s first English-language film, Fingernails.
It’s an absurdist drama about a slightly alternative version of our world in which technology has given couples the ability to end uncertainty, worry and divorce by taking a compatibility test that gives them peace of mind and certainty that their relationships will last forever.
Not everyone is willing to risk finding out that their relationship isn’t meant to be, no matter how hard they might work at it. But quiet schoolteacher Anna (Jessie Buckley) and her unassuming, nice-guy boyfriend Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) have taken the test and received a relieving 100%, science-certified thumbs up. In the three years since, Anna and Ryan have settled into a dull but comforting routine that they don’t have to worry about because the machine has assured them it will be eternal.
While Ryan seems happy with the result and predictable rhythms of their life, Anna is less certain, and when Ryan rebuffs her attempts to deepen their bond by taking dance lessons or pottery classes, she becomes ever more angsty. Though she’s supposed to be looking for a new teaching job, Anna secretly takes up a post at the
Love Institute, which offers courses and guidance for couples looking to take the ultimate love test.
Run by earnest, befuddled, divorced dad Duncan (Luke Wilson), the institute takes its work seriously, helping people in an increasingly romance-security-obsessed world find romantic certainty and peace. Anna, though initially dubious, becomes a believer in its work. That’s due to her growing interest in the institute’s rising-star tester Amir (Riz Ahmed), whose nerdish devotion to his work begins to attract her in ways her test results with Ryan aren’t supposed to allow.
As Anna and Ahmir’s attraction grows, the film asks the difficult, perhaps unanswerable question of whether there would be a way to measure and meet the demands of the ever-flitting human heart.
The drama is moving and there’s no evil machine villain in Nikou’s retro-futurist vision. Rather, we’re left to watch an examination of the development of a relationship between two lonely people in a world where loneliness is supposed to have been removed from the equation and social pressures regarding relationships have been theoretically lifted by the magic of AI.
Thankfully, the lack of traditional melodramatic romance drama moments is overcome by the performances of Buckley and Ahmed, who convey much with only the slightest of looks and movements, and give their relationship an aching, will-they-won’t-they magnetism that keeps us waiting to see if the fuzzy illogic of human chemistry will overcome the icy logic of scientific predestination.
Unfortunately White, who, thanks to the runaway critical and popular success of The Bear, has become hot Hollywood property, is somewhat wasted here as Ryan, a character who provides an obvious foil to Anna’s existential anxieties. He doesn’t get to do much except watch nature documentaries, believing all is well.
That said, Nikou’s restrained direction and subtle touches of absurd humour help make the film intriguing in its premise and sly vision of a not-so-implausible future. That future sees couples flock to Hugh
Grant movie marathons because “nobody understands love more”, and successful, 100% machine-certified couples are offered discounts at restaurants.
There’s a touch of Charlie Kaufman in the Love Institute and its cast of shaggy researchers, and a hint of Wes Anderson in the vision of a futurist world still full of retro elements like corded phones, wind-up car windows and a testing machine with mechanics that are more suited to classic cartoons than digital-era science fiction. However, Nikou’s ultimate vision is distinctively his own.
Fingernails is smart futurism with a loudly beating human heart that reminds us that even in a world in which everything seems measurable, there are things that remain mysterious and unquantifiable when it comes to the enigmas of love.
Fingernails is now streaming on Apple TV +