Fingernails
Apple Original Films | Release Date: October 27, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
11
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisNov 2, 2023
This gently humorous movie operates so smoothly you may not notice its subversiveness. Read full review
90
IGNRafaela Sales RossOct 19, 2023
Love is put to the test in Greek director Christos Nikou’s Fingernails, a sleek sci-fi film about a near-future where couples can scientifically test their love by removing one of the titular body parts. Read full review
80
EmpireElla KempNov 3, 2023
Moving and convincing as a case for romantic anxiety being the most isolating thing in the world. Fingernails is funny until it’s not: deeply romantic from the top of your head to the end of your fingernails. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 3, 2023
Nikou’s film is wonderfully astute on love’s unruliness: it wants you to both delight in and despair of it, and have fun doing both. Read full review
80
Time OutKaleem AftabNov 1, 2023
Nikou’s film is brimming of humour and excellent ideas, but is mostly a rebuke to anyone who thinks algorithms and technology are the answer to human problems. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarOct 28, 2023
For some, Nikou’s deliberate intent to portray a subtly warped reality may read as forced. But there’s an endearing bizarreness to “Fingernails,” his first film in English, that allows him to grasp at some of the intricacies of the human condition, steeped in silences as much as heartfelt analysis. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenSep 26, 2023
There will be blood, yes, but mainly there’s a well-written and beautifully performed investigation of yearning and the mysterious realm that apps and algorithms can only profess to quantify. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 25, 2023
A love story hinging on human chemistry as a disruptive force would fall to pieces if its stars didn’t have that very unquantifiable quiver of static between them. But Buckley and Ahmed play off each other exquisitely, gradually reflecting each other in motion and mien, each looking at the other with the kind of facially centered full-body want that no amount of dialogue can convey on its own. Read full review
78
The AtlanticShirley LiNov 9, 2023
For all its whimsy, Fingernails is delicately profound. Its characters aren’t making bold romantic moves; they’re interrogating their assumptions of what is ultimately an unknowable phenomenon. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 10, 2023
It has an optimistic charm all its own, as well as strong performances throughout—especially from White and Buckley. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsOct 16, 2023
The quiet soulfulness of Buckley, Ahmed, and White makes for a banquet of slow cinema, one that haunts more than shocks in its parsing of love, lust, and longing. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 26, 2023
Fingernails’ themes may be a tad trite, but the storytelling’s unfussy elegance helps sell Nikou’s message about the messy vitality of true love. Read full review
70
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 21, 2023
The success of the film mostly rests on Jessie Buckley in the lead role and her chemistry with Riz Ahmed as her potential romantic interest. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyMaureen Lee LenkerSep 26, 2023
There are interesting concepts at play in the ways Fingernails explores loneliness and desire. Notably, the test doesn't account for long-term compatibility but the more intangible presence of love. But the film doesn't go far enough in the ways it questions the science and accuracy of the test. Read full review
67
ColliderRoss BonaimeSep 17, 2023
There are great ideas throughout Fingernails and strong filmmaker instincts, but it also feels like a film that should’ve gone just a bit deeper into this world, its love, and its ideas. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 2, 2023
Although engaging at times, Fingernails is ultimately frustrating. Read full review
60
The IndependentAdam WhiteNov 10, 2023
As Fingernails goes on, though, it never transcends its leading questions. Instead it maintains a quiet simmer. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 6, 2023
Buckley, as always, is terrific, bringing the picture more emotional potency than it perhaps warrants. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 2, 2023
It is the intelligence and delicacy of the acting which keeps this wobbly contrivance steady. Read full review
60
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsNov 1, 2023
Even though it’s a story that severely lacks for surprise, in both the silly nature of the tests and the question of Anna and Amir’s latent bond, the actors take the material seriously enough for the film to remain engaging enough. Read full review
58
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerNov 1, 2023
I found myself undeniably charmed by a lingering warmth in the coldness of Fingernails, no doubt helped along by the performances of Buckley and Ahmed. Read full review
50
Screen RantAlex HarrisonNov 3, 2023
Keeping us close to the film's talented cast is a decided strength of this, and the performances add nuance to a largely straightforward viewing experience. But it's hard not to wish Fingernails had grander designs. It shows just enough of its full potential to leave us wanting to see those ideas expressed more fully. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreOct 28, 2023
The frustrating thing about Fingernails, which is directed by Christos Nikou from a script he wrote with Stavros Raptis and Sam Steiner, is that it’s so disconnected from the physical side of romance even as it has an intensely anatomical phenomenon at its center. Read full review
50
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 26, 2023
The actors are game, but their connection is more cutesy than romantic. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 26, 2023
There’s nowhere for the movie to go once it establishes that the safety love offers can also be the source of its undoing. Read full review
47
TheWrapOct 30, 2023
The movie only scratches the surface, bringing together the sexually potent Buckley, White and Ahmed but unable, or perhaps unwilling, to capture the passion of which they’re capable. Read full review
40
The GuardianCharles BramescoSep 26, 2023
The evasive, guarded acting from the main players can only do so much to elevate the paltry material Nikou gives them to work with. A long, fitfully amusing walk down a short road. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanNov 1, 2023
It’s not the familiarity of this setup that irks, but its silliness. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonNov 1, 2023
The problem with Fingernails is it takes itself too seriously. Co-writer and director Christos Nikou takes a clinical, dramatic approach to such a high-concept, over-the-top and ridiculous premise. He seems so enamored by the concept of the movie that he forgot that the movie was supposed to be about relationships and not the testing. Read full review
25
The Film StageC.J. PrinceSep 26, 2023
There’s so much dead space and so little insight in Fingernails as it trudges toward a conclusion that can be figured out in the first five minutes. Read full review
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