Tuner (2025 | USA | 109 minutes | Daniel Roher)
Amid festivals clogged with so many films with “prestige” ambitions, it’s a thrillingly welcome jolt when a really fun movie executes on a clever concept and is impeccably entertaining from top to bottom. And that was exactly the case when the good word of Tuner started rippling through queues at Telluride before putting on the full charm offensive in Toronto a week later. Making the transition from pulse-pounding documentary filmmaking to small-stakes crime romance, Daniel Roher does exactly that with a film that just moves from the jump and never lets up until the closing credits.
It helps that he has the infinite charms of Dustin Hoffman in his toolkit as Harry Horowitz, an easygoing owner of a venerable door-to-door piano tuning operation. Driving around the greater New York City area between opulent homes, ordinary apartments, and hallowed concert halls, he’s cheerfully upholding a decades-long profession for a dwindling audience of customers who need his services. Holding his own alongside the living legend is Leo Woodall as Niki White, hitting all the right notes as his pseudo-nephew and hardscrabble assistant whose hyperacute hearing and perfect pitch make him especially suited to the gig. Less superpower than curse, Woodall embodies a character who bears the psychological burden of having been prevented from fulfilling the promise of his incredible musical gifts. Instead, he makes his way through life behind a protective shell of constant ear protection and a world-weariness for connections.
The easygoing buddy comedy takes an eventful swerve when Niki’s hyperacute hearing gets his foot in the door of a far more lucrative side-gig of after-hours safecracking. With great power (and profitability), though, comes substantially greater risk. The criminal capering is fun while it lasts, but the film is situated in the real world of mounting debts, declining health, and runaway personal experiences. All push Niki deeper into an enterprise of criminal idiots while juggling a nascent relationship with a music composition student (Havana Rose Liu as Ruthie, admirably given plenty to do).
One of the most purely enjoyable movies I saw on last year’s festival circuit and as unlikely a follow-up to Oscar-winning Navalny as I could have imagined. While that doc hinged on one person’s stake in a massive geopolitical movement, there are some similarities in craftsmanship. Like that propulsive and keenly observed documentary about a Russian political figure crushed under the weight of an oppressive state, Tuner also has impeccable pacing and exceptional character work. Here, Roher balances the vibes of a great hang, introduces a sweet little romance, and develops the emotional stakes of found family while juggling an increasingly dangerous criminal enterprise.
I mostly know Woodall from television, but he gives a big screen performance here as Niki. Whether it’s the wisecracking yet sincere familial apprentice role to Hoffman (and Tovah Feldshuh as Harry’s wife Maria), a burgeoning relationship with Havana Rose Liu, or in heist sequences, he’s someone that quickly earns the audience’s affection and empathy. While the diverse settings in the life of a piano tuner turned accomplice look great through the lens of cinematographer Lowell A. Meyer, it’s more important that they sound great. It accomplishes this with an original score by Marius de Vries that situates us into the classical music environment and impressive sound design from Johnnie Burn (The Zone of Interest) that brings us inside Niki’s world. Working from a sparklingly crisp script he wrote with Robert Ramsey, Roher keeps the various threads in perfect harmony for a complete crowd-pleasing package that includes emotional resonance, rhythmic action and suspense, with plenty of heart and soul.
I couldn’t believe that it didn’t take home the audience award at TIFF, but as one of the most winningly charming movies I’ve seen in the last year, I’m certain it’ll crack the code on winning fans in wide release.
An earlier version of this review ran when Tuner had its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It arrives in local theaters on May 29
Image courtesy Black Bear.