Butler's Cinema Scene

Riz Ahmed, Jessie Buckley

“FINGERNAILS” My rating: C+ (Apple+)

113 minutes | MPAA rating: R

From the INTRIGUING IDEA GOES NOWHERE DEPARTMENT:

“Fingernails” unfolds in an alternate reality that looks a lot like America in the 1980s.  No ubiquitous cell phones or laptops. Most of the cars are sedans, not SUVs. The TV sets are modestly proportioned.

Except that in this reality the films “Titanic” (1997)  and “Notting Hill” (1999) are already classics (the latter a key title in the Hugh Grant Romance film festival).

And a special feature of this alternate universe is a process (allegedly scientific) that allows couples to test for romantic compatability. Ideally you want a score of 50%, indicating that a couple love each other equally.  More often though, those tested discover that they’ve  absolutely no future with their current squeeze.

And what do you have to sacrifice for this life-changing information? Well, in addition to paying a steep fee you must have one of your fingernails pulled out with pliers (sans anesthesia) so that it can be microwaved along with one yanked from your significant other.  Apparently fingernails are terrific indicators of one’s emotional state.

Anna (Jessie Buckley) is the latest employee of the Love Institute, which not only conducts the fingernail tests but holds seminars and workshops and issues reports on what its researchers have discovered about romance.

Anna and her beau Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) did the fingernail test several years earlier and were told that they were a perfect match.  Except that Anna is starting to get bored with the relationship (possibly Ryan is too nice and predictable).  Anna hopes that by working as a counselor at the Institute she can gain insights into her own romantic sensibilities.

Her work partner is Amir (Riz Ahmed), and it doesn’t take a fingernail test to determine that Anna’s affections soon will be directed his way.

As written by Christos Nikou, Sam Steiner and Davros Raptis and directed by Nikou, “Fingernails” scores more points for quirkiness than for emotional heft.

And even the quirkiness is of the low-caliber variety.  There are a couple of amusing moments but the film never quite jells as either comedy or romance.  I was ready for it to wrap things up a good half hour before the end.

That said, I’m a big fan of Buckley (even with a ‘do that looks like it was styled with a weed whacker).  Ahmed and White are solid as Anna’s romantic options, and Luke Wilson very nearly steals the film as the science-nerd chief of the Love Institute.

Forget about the fingernail test.  When it comes to human emotions there are no absolutes.

|Robert W. Butler