Virginia Film Festival

In the not-so-distant future, Anna (Jessie Buckley) and her partner Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) have achieved every couple’s dream: they possess an undisputed document certifying their true love. Despite this, their ordinary and routine life leads Anna to question the validity of their successful love test, which involved using cutting-edge technology to analyze their extracted fingernails.

Anna begins a job at the Love Institute, where couples come to assess their compatibility and strengthen their bond through training. Working closely with Amir (Riz Ahmed), Anna begins to wonder if he might be her one true love and questions whether to trust her feelings or a technological assessment. Shot on 35mm film, Fingernails offers a surreal commentary on the desire for certitude and dependence on technology. Featuring physical comedy and moments of horror inside a love triangle, the film asks what might consequences might arise if we disconnect from our primal instincts.

“Breezy but thoughtful, the film satirises society’s myths about soulmates while wondering if there is something to the idea of ‘The One.'” -Screen International, Tim Grierson