LOVE SCIENCES

FINGERNAILS Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed are put to the test in an intriguing sci-fi love story.

The writing’s on the wall for Anna…

If there were a test that could definitively prove that you and your partner were in love, would you take it? That’s the idea at the heart of Fingernails, a low-key sci-fi romance from writer/director Christos Nikou (Apples). ‘I wanted to make a comment on our society, and how we experience love right now, and how we are trying to find love through different ways, and dating apps, and social media,’ says Nikou when we meet at the Toronto International Film Festival. ‘It’s one of the most elusive things we cannot analyse.’

Testing the thesis, quite literally, is Jessie Buckley’s Anna, who takes a job at a ‘Love Institute’, unbeknownst to her boyfriend, Ryan (Jeremy Allen White). There she meets fellow tester Amir (Riz Ahmed), who makes her wonder if her positive result with Ryan was accurate. Fingernails isn’t set in a specific year - ‘Maybe at the end of the 90s… We don’t know exactly when, but it’s timeless’ - and Nikou namechecks The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as touchpoints of conceptual stories that are very grounded, rather than futuristic or distant.

Anna and Amir get to know each other when he mentors her at the institute, as they go through (often funny, often surreal) exercises with couples ahead of their tests. While you might predict that two actors as individually electric as Buckley and Ahmed would have great chemistry, it’s still a leap of faith.

‘I just followed my instincts on that, to be honest,’ says Nikou, who didn’t

‘You have to feel a little bit hurt in order to feel love’

CHRISTOS NIKOU

screen-test them. ‘But I really felt that they would have amazing chemistry. When I approached both of them separately, they both told me that they were looking for years to make a project together.’ During their first meeting at Cannes, where the film package was sold, ‘We all felt the chemistry [between them] already,’ says Nikou.

As for the title, that refers to the ultimate test itself, in which a fingernail is extracted from each lover and run through a machine to determine the match. Initially, co-writer Sam Steiner had suggested extracting something from the participants’ hearts, which they quickly realised would be unworkable. ‘I started thinking that somehow the extension of our hearts are our cell phones,’ says Nikou. ‘I always wanted to connect this story a little bit with our fingers, because, in order to find love, people are swiping right and left on dating apps. And then we found this scientific fact that when you have a problem with your heart, there are small white spots on your nails.’

It’s a wince-inducing aspect of a film that’s otherwise understated and gently moving. ‘I mean, you have to feel a little bit hurt in order to feel love,’ concludes Nikou. ‘Because I think that love hurts when it’s real.’

FINGERNAILS IS IN SELECT CINEMAS AND ON APPLE TV+ FROM 3 NOVEMBER.