Love in the digital age goes next level in Apple TV+'s Fingernails, starring Riz Ahmed, Jessie Buckley and Jeremy Allen White.
Christos Nikou directed the sci-fi romance comedy from a script he co-wrote with Stavros Raptis and Sam Steiner. The film will be Nikou's English-language debut.
In the film, scientists invent a computer that can test whether a couple is truly in love by running a series of scans on their fingernails.
Buckley plays Anna, a new employee at a testing facility where the machines are kept. She is currently in a relationship with Ryan, played by Ryan Jeremy Allen White. Their test results say they're a perfect match, however, Anna can't understand how that can be when she's developing an attraction for her co-worker Amir, played by Riz Ahmed.
Luke Wilson and Annie Murphy are also set to appear in supporting roles.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, the director stated the movie is about, "how difficult it is for people to fall in love right now, especially through the extensive use of social media and all of these apps."
The movie is produced by Cate Blanchett, who became a big fan of Nikou following a screening of his debut film, Apples, at the 2020 Venice Film Festival.
Fingernails will be released in select theaters and Apple TV on November 3. Before its fall release, the film will premiere at TIFF on September 12.
Starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White, Greek director Christos Nikou’s English-language debut weaves an allegory about our desire for certainty, reliance on technology, and the price we pay for losing the connection to our most primal instincts.
Set in an uncanny future — or perhaps a slightly alternate present where cellphone technology is nowhere to be found — Anna (Jessie Buckley; Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, TIFF ’22) and her partner Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) have achieved every couple’s dream: they are in possession of a document certifying their true love.
Their comfortable if somewhat mundane life, however, leaves Anna questioning their successful love test, administered by placing their extracted fingernails into a cutting-edge machine. Anna soon begins working for the Love Institute under the tutelage of Duncan (Luke Wilson), which, in addition to determining a couples’ status via the mysterious test, trains them to deepen bonds.
There, she’s paired with the experienced — and devastatingly charming — Amir (Riz Ahmed; Sound of Metal, TIFF ’19) to take couples at various stages of relationships through a series of love-building activities before the big test. As the new colleagues work to ameliorate the connections of clients, Anna begins to wonder if perhaps Amir is her one true love and if trusting her own feelings is a more reliable metric than what is determined by a machine.