Fingernails 4K 2023 2160p WEB HDR

Anna (Jesse Buckley) works in a mysterious institute, where the analysis of nail plates can determine the degree of love partners in each other. The heroine suspects that her own relationship is no longer real - in this regard, she goes on a new secret mission, which should completely change her fate.

Fingernails 4K Review
The main characters, a young couple Anna (Jesse Buckley) and Ryan ("Bear" star Jeremy Allen White), live in an alternate reality where humanity has long ago turned love into a kind of science. Everyone can find the perfect match with the help of a special device. True, in return you will have to sacrifice one fingernail. And despite being one hundred percent compatible with Ryan, Anna feels that something in their relationship is going wrong. In search of answers, she takes a job at an institute that deals with the measurement of love. There, Anna meets Amir (Riz Ahmed) - romantic feelings suddenly flare between the coworkers.

Greek director Christos Nikou's name is inseparable from that of the master of absurdist dystopianism Yorgos Lanthimos, as Nikou served as second director on a number of his acclaimed films. Both Lanthimos and Nikou are considered to be representatives, if not progenitors, of the Greek "strange wave". However, Nikou in the degree of its extraordinary is significantly inferior to his older colleague, his debut work - a satirical drama "Apples" - a perfect confirmation of this. In all respects chamber picture hardly shocked contrived grotesque, but pierced the emotions at the expense of small human tragedies, the depth of which gradually increased to universal proportions.

In the sci-fi drama "Nails," filmed specifically for Apple's streaming service TV+, Christos Niku faithfully follows the chosen tone of the narrative, reintroducing viewers to a cluttered dystopian world where people have suddenly forgotten how to truly love each other. Anna and Ryan seem to have long since lost their emotional compass - their confidence in their relationship is based on data from a mysterious machine that determines compatibility by fingernails. It would seem that humanity has finally found the perfect cure for the symptom of loneliness in the big city, a kind of guarantee of "and they lived happily ever after." But along with unshakable confidence in their partner, the heroes lose a basic human right - the right to choose. The ability to love whoever you want, without any guarantees and moral fetters. In fact, Niku unwinds the theses of the anesthesia culture that is gradually absorbing our society: security and comfort in relationships between people are built not on mutual trust, but on neurotic escape from conflict. In this respect, a magic machine from the future is a universal way to resolve any internal contradiction for those who are afraid to ask the other uncomfortable questions.

Niku's ideas can hardly be called innovative - in the middle of the noughties, the famous British technophobe Charlie Brooker reflected on the same theme in an episode of the anthology "Black Mirror" called "Hang the DJ". The main characters, played by Joe Cole and Georgina Campbell, had an advanced version of Tinder that determined the timeline of a romantic relationship. At the expense of less stretched timing and more spectacular visuals, "Hang the DJ," even years after its release, seems like a far more compelling story than "Nails." Niku's extreme detachment to his characters played a cruel joke on the director - it's hard to make a movie about love and not hit the sentiment. In "Nails" the lack of emotional core feels like a painful void, which is so eager to fill with something meaningful, whether it's an eloquent dialog or a stormy relationship.

Nevertheless, "Nails" remains a project with a so-called dream cast - one Jesse Buckley sells the movie from the word go. All the more so, where else will you see such an unexpected actor love triangle. However, the neurotic nature of the relationship between Anna and Ryan in the first half of the tape takes away any hope for dystopian spin-off "Bear". Alas, in "Nails" Allen White is destined for the role of an unworthy "side" boyfriend, whose sensual range barely overlaps the emotional spectrum of a toothpick. The on-screen duo of Buckley and Ahmed is the purest and most beautiful thing in the picture, but by acting alone, "Nails" is unlikely to make it to awards season.