Metacritic reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There’s nowhere for the movie to go once it establishes that the safety love offers can also be the source of its undoing.

The actors are game, but their connection is more cutesy than romantic.

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.

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.