By the age of 30, Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roher had received the Oscar for Finest Documentary Characteristic for “Navalny.” His subsequent documentary, “Blink,” premiered at Telluride final yr. Losing little time, he returns to the Colorado Rockies one yr later with “Tuner,” however “this one feels just a little totally different,” he instructed a sold-out crowd Saturday, earlier than its world premiere on the fest’s Galaxy theater. He’s referring to his pivot into narrative function filmmaking, becoming a member of a number of his documentarian contemporaries making this similar transfer of late — together with Joshua Oppenheimer whose musical “The Finish” additionally performed Telluride final yr.
“Tuner” continues Leo Woodall’s personal transfer into main man territory, after “Bridget Jones: Mad In regards to the Boy” earlier this yr. The Brit broke out because the conflicted lease boy in Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” and has additionally starred in current TV collection “One Day” and “Prime Goal.” Right here he performs Niki, a piano virtuoso whose promising profession was lower brief by a uncommon listening to situation which makes him “allergic to sound,” he explains in a scene. Additionally starring Dustin Hoffman, the veteran leans on his pure appeal in restricted display time as Harry Horowitz, who runs a small piano tuning operation with Niki as his sole worker. A humorous opening montage catalogues the odd couple’s drive throughout New York Metropolis’s 5 boroughs, tuning pianos for a number of rich shoppers. Harry fills the drive with rants about mercury ranges in tuna, or the way it’s not ldl cholesterol you need to be worrying about, it’s irritation. (On that latter level, my well being nut buddies in L.A. would say, he’s not fallacious.)
However this isn’t some kitchen sink, slice-of-life drama following two piano tuners, and the movie’s safe-cracking subplot is ready up conveniently — maybe a smidge an excessive amount of so — with little wasted time. Early on, Niki returns house from dinner at Harry’s and teaches himself, through on-line tutorials, the best way to crack Harry’s small house secure as a favor, after Harry by chance locks his meds inside. Niki shortly realizes his listening to situation has a single silver lining: It lends him a particular knack for this apply. He makes nothing of it, as a result of when would he presumably be referred to as upon to make use of it once more?
However, as luck would have it, just a few brief scenes later, throughout a late night time tuning session in a seemingly-empty mansion (Billy Joel is scheduled to play this explicit piano at a profit), Niki miraculously finds himself performing the identical safe-cracking favor for some shady Israelis. Led by Uri (Lior Raz), the trio shortly ropes him into their small-time legal enterprise, which includes swiping money and luxurious gadgets (watches, jewellery, and so on.) from Uri’s rich shoppers. They motive that in the event that they preserve the take small, their shoppers received’t miss the objects. And in the event that they do? The shoppers fireplace their housekeeper and file an insurance coverage declare. Whereas not a foolproof plan, there have been much less thought out legal rackets.
Hesitant to hitch them, Niki relents after studying that Harry, at the moment hospitalized after a coronary heart assault, has $36,000 in overdue Medicaid payments. Out on his first project, Niki freezes up, standing wordlessly in entrance of the secure, needing to be additional satisfied to tug the set off and get to work. Whereas committing a legal act ought to give anybody not already in that line of labor pause, he’s already agreed, accepted a money advance and gone out with Uri and gang to the positioning. Why is that this hesitation manifesting now and never earlier? An absence of prior characterization and depth in Woodall’s efficiency results in a second that feels included solely as a result of one of these film usually contains that preliminary indecision.
Niki’s situation forces him to put on corded ear plugs, together with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones he slips on when issues are particularly noisy (which in NYC is usually). This sends a transparent sign to these round him that don’t know the objects’ function, to go away him alone. And so Niki has discovered to navigate a lifetime of isolation, outdoors of Harry and his spouse Marla (Tovah Feldshuh). Woodall’s quiet brooding and puffy blue eyes recall Jeremy Allen White, whereas his stressed power and bodily look calls to thoughts a younger Michael Pitt. This mixture for a number one man is exclusive, but it surely’s exhausting to not sense that Woodall is miscast as this former-pianist turned-tuner, turned-safe cracker, each bodily and with an absence of interiority he renders onscreen in his silent stoicism.
His giant arms lined in an array of newbie stick and poke tattoos confound: Is there an unreferenced stint at RISD or CalArts in Niki’s previous? Whereas the rich householders usually mistake Niki and Harry’s piano tuning apply as blue collar in nature, continuously asking the pair to carry out duties like fixing the bathroom or the WiFi, piano tuning is positioned within the higher echelons of bourgeois tradition, as a refined, possible even nerdy occupation. What different occupation would have clientele with $5,000 laying round — which the movie makes clear is an inexpensive price — to pay the pair to tune their Steinway which they may in flip possible by no means play?
There may be an artfulness to piano tuning that Woodall explains poetically to music pupil Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), which kicks off a courtship between the 2, hampered initially by Ruthie’s personal stubbornness and rightful suspicion of Niki’s aloof schtick. “Tuner” comes absolutely alive when Liu enters the image as Ruthie, and she or he is a revelation in her advanced portrayal of this grumpy-yet-sweet, pushed musician hellbent on securing a fellowship with a famend composer referred to as Meissner (Jean Reno). Leaning into romantic comedy tropes, an opportunity run-in leads Harry to insist Niki stroll her to class — a stroll between two hardheads that goes about in addition to you may count on.
Roher and co-writer Robert Ramsey’s script slyly brings them collectively as soon as extra, this time for good, when Ruthie’s grandmother’s piano is broken from a ceiling leak. Out of choices, she wants somebody quick to come back assist mitigate the harm. Liu’s portrayal of Ruthie is empowered but by no means caricaturish; she enjoys the comforts of her newfound relationship with Niki, even when she is overtly perplexed by him at instances, like when he items her a classic Rolex after solely a month of relationship. Closeups of her face in varied states of puzzlement, affection, or frustration dazzle, and take away any doubt: Liu is a star.
On this center part, “Tuner” slides into a well-known narrative register: As Niki will get in deeper with this harmful gang of thieves, he struggles to stability these commitments with the calls for of his relationship with Ruthie. It turns into much less about whether or not Niki can preserve his twin lives separate, and extra about how issues will resolve between the couple as soon as it inevitably does all come crashing down.
Along with his excessive sensitivity to all sound, Niki’s kryptonite is a blue airhorn that Uri makes use of to manage him as soon as Niki begins to actively search for a means out. A instrument from an iconic “Jackass” prank being deployed to incapacitate the hero, leaving him screaming in agony on the bottom, “Tuner” is undeniably very foolish, hewing extra carefully to a Jacques Audiard image than a hard-boiled crime thriller. Like Audiard, it appears to relish combining its quirky components into one thing emotional and resonant. In actual fact, “Tuner” shares a lot in frequent with Audiard’s “The Beat That My Coronary heart Skipped” with each exploring the intersection of live performance piano enjoying and small-time crime.
The intentional throwback nature of “Tuner” carries advantages and downsides. There’s a consolation in merely sitting again and permitting its competent filmmaking take you thru its well-worn narrative beats. At different instances, the script can really feel unimaginative and overly paint-by-numbers, as if conceived by Roher and Ramsey with Robert McKee’s “Story” in a single hand, a highlighter within the different. Some style subversion can be welcome, to freshen issues up a bit. To a viewer with even a rudimentary understanding of one of these story, a lot of its twists are choreographed properly prematurely. However not at all times. A key third act twist is so coincidental it’s virtually not possible to see coming. This twist doesn’t derail the narrative with its sheer implausibility, a lot as make clear the kind of film you’ve been in the whole time.
From the beginning, “Tuner” has largely been a fantasy. The place else do piano tuners occupy such standing that their work days are crammed with close to fixed home calls? And the place else can Niki repay Harry’s medical debt in stacks of money — $10K at a time — with out arousing any suspicion? “Tuner” accurately acknowledges that if an viewers is invested within the love story on the middle, they are going to be forgiving of any overly-convenient plotting. And whereas the love story on the middle of “Tuner” may be charming, particularly throughout a montage cataloguing Niki and Ruthie’s whirlwind first month, Liu is in the end compelled to hold an excessive amount of of the burden on this division, which then attracts these eyebrow-raising contrivances out into the sunshine extra overtly.
Visually, close-ups from contained in the lock mechanisms of the safes make it straightforward to trace Niki’s progress as he fastidiously spins the mechanism, listening intently for that refined metallic clink in a simply barely larger register each time the right quantity aligns. It’s a satisfying course of to observe unfold and is rendered properly on display, each visually and aurally with sound designer Johnnie Burn’s (“The Zone of Curiosity”) knowledgeable craft. In any other case, “Tuner” throws loads on the wall stylistically. As Roher’s first narrative undertaking, one senses a willingness to mess around and check out numerous issues out. “What if we positioned a digital camera on the secure handles as Niki spins it?” “What a few fisheye reflection of his face within the secure’s chrome plating?”
It’s a playful film in kind and content material, one which hardly ever takes itself too significantly, and as such, it might’t assist however skate by as a pleasurable trip, whether or not via permitting Hoffman, Woodall and Liu area to commerce quips, or via snappy modifying when coming into a brand new location. Regardless of its mild tone, Roher just isn’t afraid to get darker and straight handle the troublesome conditions his forged of characters discover themselves in, and the movie walks that tonal tightrope between mild humor and the high-stakes world of each safe-cracking and new relationships properly. However, as if to remind the viewers the place its true sensibilities lie, it’s telling that the movie undercuts an emotional closeup of Liu within the movie’s closing moments with an off-handed, off-screen, one-liner from Niki. Betting accurately on how this threat would play out, Niki’s line drew a hearty snort from the Telluride viewers, ending the movie on a excessive word.
Grade: B-
“Tuner” premiered on the 2025 Telluride Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment searching for U.S. distribution.
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