Movie Review

The idea of romantic love goes under the microscope in far-out Fingernails

The concept of love is an ineffable thing, especially between romantic partners. While movies have spent plenty of time exploring love, it’s difficult to say they get it “right” because no two situations are ever the same. The new Apple TV+ film Fingernails delves into the subject in a unique way, one that may have some couples questioning their own bonds.

Anna (Jessie Buckley) is in a steady-if-unexciting relationship with Ryan (Jeremy Allen White), but one that has been verified by science, as they have submitted themselves to a test using new technology that confirms that they truly are in love. While they believe in the test, others are skeptical of its accuracy and refuse to take it, perhaps out of fear that it would come back negative.

Anna, looking for something new in her life, applies for a job at the institute that administers the test, a fact she hides from Ryan. She’s paired up with Amir (Riz Ahmed) to work with various couples to test their compatibility. Unfortunately – or fortunately? – she finds herself slowing falling for Amir, causing her to question the infallibility of the test and who she should actually be with.

Written and directed by Christos Nikou, and co-written by Sam Steiner and Stavros Raptis, the film is an interesting exploration of what it means to be in love wrapped in a slightly sci-fi concept. The idea that any kind of computer test could verify a couple’s love seems implausible, and there are times when the company, led by the harried Duncan (Luke Wilson), comes off as a one big scam.

Still, a lot of people buy into it, especially Anna and Amir, and the type of methods they use on couples sells that belief, including things like electroshock and tandem skydiving. But it’s the actual test that takes the most faith, and it’s here where the title of the film comes in. Suffice it to say that both members of a couple must make a sacrifice to prove their love for one another, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

However, if you remove the far-out parts, the story is one seen many times before. One partner, Anna, longs for a freshness in her relationship, while the other, Ryan, is comfortable and doesn’t see a need to change what doesn’t seem to be broken. Amir not only offers something new for Anna, but seems to share a more open-minded approach in general. The added element of the test merely heightens her need to get to the bottom of her feelings.

Buckley has been a bit of a chameleon in her career, but she always manages to give her characters lots of heart. She makes Anna into someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s a wild ride of her emotions. Ahmed is a similarly empathetic actor, and he makes for a great complement to Buckley. White has an intensity, recently seen on FX’s The Bear, that’s softened here, but just enough so as not to make him seem like a complete jerk.

It’s difficult to believe that many people would go to the lengths the characters in Fingernails do to find out if they’re compatible with their partners, but watching others do it makes for a compelling watch. It’s also a warning that too much questioning about the nature of love can cause damage to one’s soul.

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+

Jessie Buckley in Fingernails.

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Fingernails is now streaming on Apple TV+

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Movie Review

Death stalks a new generation in gory Final Destination: Bloodlines

Photo by Eric Milner

Kaitlyn Santa Juana in Final Destination: Bloodlines.

On the surface, the Final Destination films really shouldn’t work. There is no villain other than the concept of death itself, and nearly every death that occurs is foreshadowed so heavily that it removes the normal suspense that comes in horror films. And yet the franchise was successful enough to spawn five films over 11 years in the early 2000s, and now a reboot, Final Destination: Bloodlines.

A fantastic opening sequence set in the 1960s sets both the tone and the plot of the film, in which Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has a recurring nightmare about a disaster that her grandmother, Iris (Gabrielle Rose), helped to avert. A visit to the reclusive Iris convinces Stefani that she and her family should not exist, and that each one of them is destined to meet a grisly end in the near future.

Met with resistance from her family members, Kaitlyn is unsurprisingly proven right as the film goes along, with different people dying in a variety of bizarre ways. A visit to William Bludworth (the late Tony Todd), a mortician who’s been the one constant in the series, provides a glimmer of hope that they can cheat death. But will they figure it out before it’s too late?

Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, the film does not try to reinvent the wheel for the concept. The entire point is to get as creative as possible with the death scenes, and the filmmakers take that mandate seriously, with each successive death becoming increasingly gruesome. The Rube Goldberg-like manner in which each death occurs makes the scenes come off as entertaining instead of off-putting.

The idea of Death hunting down an entire family line due to the actions of the family elder is a solid twist on the series’ central premise, and that change keeps the film from feeling repetitive. The story also introduces the possibility that the entire series is connected due to Iris’ actions, with the character possessing a scrapbook that references well-known incidents from previous films, a fun Easter egg for longtime fans.

The creativity of the kill sequences does not carry over to the overall story, though. Almost every character in the film only exists in order to meet a horrific end, so anything that they have going on outside of being stalked by Death is purely window dressing. Consequently, it’s hard to really care about anybody, even if they are all related to one another.

Because characters are so easily dispatched in the film, the cast is devoid of well-known actors. This is by far Santa Juana’s biggest role to date, and she does well enough to want to see more of her in the future. Adults like Alex Zahara and Rya Kihlstedt are character actors who bring some history with them, while the younger group is composed of people still trying to make names for themselves.

Final Destination: Bloodlines is a solid return for the franchise, even if it feels more like a one-off film rather than a justification for more stories in the future. But given how easily the concept can be adapted into new circumstances, don’t be surprised if another movie pops up in a couple of years.

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Final Destination: Bloodlines opens in theaters on May 16.

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