Tuner focuses on a New York piano tuner named Niki, played by Leo Woodall, right, and his trusted mentor and surrogate father Harry, played by Dustin Hoffman.Elevation Pictures/Supplied
Tuner
Directed by Daniel Roher
Written by Daniel Roher and Robert Ramsey
Starring Leo Woodall, Havana Rose Liu and Dustin Hoffman
Classification PG; 107 minutes
Opens in theatres May 29
Critic’s Pick
Toronto filmmaker Daniel Roher has accomplished a remarkable amount over barely a decade in the business.
He got on the good side of Canadian rock legend Robbie Robertson – no mean feat given the musician’s ornery reputation – for his 2019 documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band. He gave Putin’s No. 1 enemy Alexei Navalny a worldwide platform in his Oscar-winning 2022 doc Navalny. And earlier this year with his Sundance-certified The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, Roher took on the masters of the artificial-intelligence industrial complex – arguably with less gumption and gusto than his previous subjects, but it was still an impressive effort.
This weekend, though, Roher is offering another altogether different swerve and surprise. With Tuner, Roher’s debut into narrative fiction, the director is keeping his audience on their toes, but also ensuring that they’ll be tapping them, too. A ferociously slick and rhythmically entertaining heist thriller, the movie feels like a breath of fresh air not only for the independent film space, where genuinely new ideas are a bitcoin a dozen, but for a filmmaker who seems completely, utterly, blessedly incapable of sitting still.
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The Canadian-accented love child of Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting and Michael Mann’s Thief, Tuner focuses on a New York piano tuner named Niki (Leo Woodall), who spends his days fixing baby grands in homes that he’ll never be able to afford. But Niki isn’t just a gifted tuner, he’s a one-time piano prodigy whose career stalled from a case of hyperacusis, which affects his sensitivity to loud noises. Life for Niki isn’t all that bad: He’s got a trusted mentor and surrogate father in Harry (Dustin Hoffman), who not only pays his bills but acts as his wingman, helping Niki earn the affections of a driven pianist named Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu).
That might be enough material to hang a charming indie romcom on, but Roher isn’t interested in meeting expectations, only surpassing them. Quickly but not abruptly, Niki finds himself immersed in the criminal underworld, his near superhuman piano-tuning skills attracting the attention of a local safe-cracking crew. With Harry in the hospital and medical bills mounting, Niki figures he’s found an easy new way to earn cash. Naturally, this too-good-to-be-true plan carries a few cracks of its own, and soon enough Niki is facing a life-and-death situation.
Brilliantly edited with fun and flair by Greg O’Bryant and brimming with the kind of rat-a-tat, lyrical dialogue that keeps the whole enterprise humming, the film practically vibrates. While the story hits one bum note toward the end – thanks to a slightly ill-fitting appearance by Jean Reno and a plot device we’ll call Chekhov’s Antique Watch – Roher keeps his audience just like the treasures Niki’s crew so badly covets: locked up.
After delicately handling so many bigger-than-big real-world personalities, Roher proves himself to be just as capable an interrogator and wrangler of larger-than-life actors, too. Hoffman is delightfully cranky and mensch-y as an old-timer who’s seen it all, even if he doesn’t occupy too much of the story. Rising star Rose Liu, meanwhile, is exceptionally charming as Niki’s love interest, who pieces together the story a little later than she should, likely because she’s just so charmed by her new beau. And this is truly Woodall’s show, the White Lotus actor embodying the easy charm of Ryan Gosling with the five-paces-ahead poise of Matt Damon.
Roher gives him the tools for the job, but Woodall cases the joint clean.