Scientists have known for a while that our fingernails can be early indicators of heart problems. But what if our nails could reveal other matters of the heart?
Five years ago, millions of people worldwide took the “love test.” Scientists had developed a way to biologically determine if two people were in love or not. Unfortunately, 87% of the couples were not.
Families were ripped apart as couples split up. Friends began arguing over the validity of the test. And soon, “Love Institutes” began popping up worldwide as a last-ditch effort to help couples figure out how to connect and hopefully achieve a positive test result.
Anna and Ryan don’t need help from the Love Institute. They took the test three years ago and got a positive result. They were 100% certifiably in love.
But lately, Anna’s been wondering how true that is.
She and Ryan just don’t seem to connect anymore. They’ve settled into a boring, passionless routine. And the worst part is that Ryan doesn’t really seem to care.
Desperate for a change, Anna secretly takes a job at the Love Institute, hoping to learn what it truly means to be in love. Instead, she meets Amir. And even though the test says she loves Ryan and only Ryan, she can’t help but wonder how accurate the test actually is.
On a grand scale, the love test and the institute’s therapies are meant to prevent heartbreak and divorce. And while the institute itself is a bit suspect, Plugged In is always supportive of keeping marriages intact.
Anna questions what a school is teaching children after reading a poster that has rewritten the story of Adam and Eve to give them a happy, romantic ending in paradise (and has no mention of God whatsoever). When Ryan hears, he says it’s wrong to change a story so old. And Anna wonders if the original even happened.
Couples kiss and make out. At the Institute, an exercise instructs couples to find their partner in a room full of people by smell. (The participants are all in their underwear.) Later, Anna tells a successful couple to bathe together to increase intimacy. And we see Anna and Ryan (from the shoulders up) in a shower themselves.
Anna and Ryan live together out of wedlock. We see them sleeping in bed together on a few occasions (clothed, but we do see Ryan in boxer shorts).
A couple declares they’ve been having sex every night in preparation for the love test. However, they still receive a negative result and break up.
A few same-sex couples attend the Love Institute. A poster shows Adam and Eve (whose breasts are exposed) with their genitals covered by fig leaves. Part of a woman’s buttock is exposed in one scene. A man checks out his girlfriend’s clothed rear, complimenting it. We see people in swimsuits. We hear a man got divorced after he and his wife of several years received a negative love test. Someone says French songs are “erotic.”
[Spoiler warning] Anna eventually cheats on Ryan, kissing and presumably having sex with Amir (we only see them in their underwear and t-shirts after the act).
Unfortunately, the only way to conduct the love test is to remove a full fingernail from each participant. This is mostly kept offscreen and there’s not a lot of blood (which is partially because the act doesn’t cause much bleeding), but we see people grimace in pain as Anna and Amir use pliers to yank the nails out. We also see the bloody nails after they’ve been removed, and we briefly spot one woman’s reddened fingers just after her nails have been removed.
When a client panics about the nail-removal process, stating that it’s literally a form of torture (he’s not wrong), Amir yanks out his own nail to demonstrate. And another character rips out multiple nails after getting a result she doesn’t like.
One of the Love Institute exercises involves shock therapy. Participants are encouraged to shock themselves when their partners leave the room so they can learn to associate heartbreak with actual physical pain—which is quite disturbing. We see Anna perform this on herself once. (Amir says that someone drowned in a different exercise, and it’s hard to tell if he’s joking or not because of his dry sense of humor.)
Another exercise involves starting a fire in a theater to see how protective people are of their partners. However, this exercise is never fulfilled since the theater owner changes his mind.
A woman dedicates a song titled “Why Don’t You Kill Yourself” to her ex-boyfriend after they receive a negative love result.
There are 15 uses of the f-word and three of the s-word. God’s name is also misused about 10 times.
People drink wine with meals. A woman drinks straight from a wine bottle at a party.
Anna lies to Ryan about working at the Love Institute, supposedly because she doesn’t want him to worry about their relationship. However, she continues to lie to him, failing to address major concerns and keeping her developing feelings for Amir hidden.
Other characters lie as well. And this becomes a problem when couples hide facts about themselves out of fear of getting a negative test result.
Many people refuse to take the love test, claiming they don’t need a certificate to know they’re in love. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, the folks we hear from are very indignant about their decision and tend to berate those who believe in the test. And we see this in the reverse as well from those who think it’s ridiculous not to take the test.
This gets even more divisive when a couple who previously received a positive result decides to retake the test simply because they’ve been fighting recently. Several people rebuke that decision because of the risk involved. But it also sets a bad precedent that if things aren’t going perfectly, rather than attempt to work through your problems, you could just retake the test and either ignore the issues completely (if your result is positive) or split up (if it’s negative).
When clients don’t want to participate in Institute activities, Amir can be almost bullying. (One man, who is deathly terrified of heights, refuses to do a skydiving exercise. Amir doesn’t force him to do it, but he’s very judgmental afterwards.)
A woman says the sound of rain makes her feel the need to urinate. The creator of the Love Institute admits he’s never thought of what to do if a participant doesn’t have arms (and therefore, no fingernails to test).
Movies and songs tell us: Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love.
But what if you’re not actually in love?
That’s the problem Anna contemplates in Fingernails. She’s watched perfectly happy couples split up—even divorce—because a test told them they weren’t biologically in love. Because that test told them they were doomed, they were.
However, Anna’s also watched folks stay together even though they seemed miserable, including herself and Ryan. And she comes to the conclusion that “sometimes being in love is lonelier than being alone.”
Unfortunately, what’s really sad about this film is the sheer lack of hope. At no point does anyone say, “Hey, instead of getting divorced, let’s try to work through our problems and fall back in love with each other.” Counseling isn’t given even a first thought. And the fact that sometimes it just takes some people longer to fall in love—to feel truly safe and vulnerable with another human being—than others isn’t considered at all.
But that’s not Fingernails’ only problem. There’s quite a bit of profanity for folks to watch out for. And while we don’t see sex or nudity on screen, it’s happening offscreen, mostly between unwed couples, and we still see characters in their underwear. There’s also a case of infidelity and some same-sex couplings.
Then, of course, there’s the title of the film, which references the fact that nearly everyone in this story gets a fingernail or two ripped out at some point.
The whole concept is gross (and I’m not just talking about the bloody nails). So while Fingernails isn’t the most explicit film ever, it’s still not going to give viewers warm, fuzzy feelings.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
