Tuner (2026)
A familiar song played with different notes
Tuner, a narrative feature directed by Academy Award-winning documentarian Daniel Roher (2022’s Navalny) follows a familiar course: A man with a tortured past gets in over his head in a world of crime, grappling with the morality of what he’s doing while trying to protect the people he cares about.
Niki (Leo Woodall) is an piano tuning apprentice to Harry (Dustin Hoffman), and has a unique condition that makes him so averse to sound that he wears special headphones, not just while working, but everywhere and every day. He’s quiet and reserved, but also clearly a savant of sorts. Niki was once a piano prodigy, and he has perfect pitch — the ability to recognize any note played on a piano through sound alone.
When Harry falls ill, Niki’s chance encounter with an outfit of thieves who pose as a security company leads him to a life of crime. His condition — and some quick YouTube tutorials — makes him an expert at safe-cracking, and he uses that skill to save Harry’s piano tuning business and pay Harry’s medical bills, helping his new underground employers skim off the top of their clients. “You don’t take everything, just enough that they won’t realize it until it’s too late.”
Anyone who has seen any movie with this familiar formula knows it’s going to end badly, but that matters not. Woodall plays his part with an astoundingly understated charisma. There’s rarely a moment when he’s not on screen and he owns the movie. The film is ripe with sound — music, first and foremost — but also just noise that’s so poisonous to Niki’s ears that it seeps through every aspect of the film. You become so attune to the sound that you cringe at every unsuspecting noise that might affect our lead.
“You don’t realize how noisy the world can be,” he says at one point.
A job tuning the piano at a prestigious music school introduces him to Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), a pianist and composition student working toward a fellowship with an acclaimed composer (played in a fun cameo by Jean Reno). Naturally, Niki and Ruthie fall for one another. Ruthie’s understanding of sound and music is a natural connection with Niki, and while the “meet-cute” is also formulaic, the on-screen chemistry feels authentic; the conversations fresh and natural.
Everything about Tuner shouldn’t work — but an easy comparison point is this year’s utterly detestable Crime 101, which follows a similar path but is flat and emotionless. It’s a credit to Woodall that he makes the character work, but also to Roher and his technical team. The collaborative elements laid forth by composer Will Bates, editor Greg O’Bryant, and some really spot-on sound design and mixing, keeps Tuner in rhythm throughout.
On a piano, if one key is out of tune, it affects the entire piece. Technically speaking, Tuner is grand. While the conclusion is a little too heavy-handed with the cliches, making it difficult for the film to fully stick the landing, the charm of its lead and the technical craft of the crew make for a really fine piece.