TUNER

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Tuner is not a regular heist thriller. Safes are cracked and guns are waved, but it unfolds at an unusual pace, and the score is not really the point. This is a far more character-driven film than plot-driven, which is unusual for the genre. Rather than building towards a clever twist or elaborate payoff, Tuner is interested in the people caught up in the crime.
Leo Woodall plays Niki, a young piano tuner with hyperacusis, an extreme sensitivity to sound. He needs earplugs and headphones to navigate the world, but his condition has also given him perfect pitch and extraordinary hearing. Once a prodigious pianist, Niki can no longer play, and there is a palpable sense of longing whenever he is near an instrument.
Woodall gives the character a wonderfully understated quality. Niki is not a hardened criminal or someone particularly attracted to the world of theft. He seems almost bewildered by how he has ended up there, and his choices are driven more by circumstance and practicality than morality. That makes Tuner feel surprisingly intimate for a crime film. The relationships around Niki are as important as the criminal enterprise, particularly his connection with Harry, played by Dustin Hoffman with his familiar, scattered charm. There is also a romantic thread with Ruthie, adding another dimension to Niki's increasingly complicated life.
The film shifts between thriller, romance and family drama without losing its sense of cohesion. Director Daniel Roher, whose background is in factual filmmaking and whose documentary Navalny won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, brings a grounded realism to the heightened world of the heist. The sound design is particularly effective, making Niki's sensitivity to noise something we can almost physically experience. It also gives the film an identity beyond its crime story. Tuner is tense without being frantic, character-driven without becoming slow, and genuinely satisfying. It clips along beautifully and ends almost before you're ready for it.