At Rosy Nails, a Vietnamese-owned nail salon where you can get a manicure for as low as $10, they recently hired a new nail tech named Tam, a cute girl with a mischievous personality. One day, a shy mechanic named Brendan walks in and asks for a manicure. He literally has a problem on his hands. Everyday after work, he washes his hands religiously, but he can never get rid of all the black oil stains embedded around his cuticles and under the nail beds. At home, when Brendan tries to make love to his distant wife, she always rejects him with the same excuse, “Your hands are filthy!” Desperately seeking to save his marriage, Brendan’s solution is to go to a nail salon. So every day after work, he comes into Rosy Nails and pays Tam to scrub his hands clean.
As Tam works on Brendan’s hands everyday, she becomes his friend and listens to him confessing his marital problems. She starts to offer him humorous advices on how to get his workaholic wife to love him again. Brendan follows Tam’s suggestions, but in the process, they develop a deep attraction towards one another, which becomes harder and harder to resist as they spend more time with each other outside the nail salon. In the end, Tam and Brendan confront their own desires and guilt, and each chooses an unexpected path.
The film explores the sense of touch and its emotional impact — how with just a simple touch, we can reveal our deepest longings, give the utmost pleasure to others, and even heal a wounded soul.
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