If there is one clear thing director Daniel Roher‘s nifty narrative filmmaking debut, Tuner, proves it is that Leo Woodall is the real deal as the next big leading man in movies.
You might know the British actor from Netflix’s limited series, One Day, or the charming romantic catch for Renee Zellweger in the current Emmy nominated Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (he’s the boy she’s mad about), or I can hint to you a brilliant supporting turn in the upcoming Toronto Film Festival World Premiering drama, Nuremberg which could land him in the Oscar conversation for the first time. But he will also be seen at Toronto in Tuner, a movie that confirms he has the chops to carry a feature film and win hearts all on his own. That film had its World Premiere yesterday at the Telluride Film Festival and is likely to be one of the first films out of the gate for Black Bear’s new distribution arm, but so far it is officially without a distributor deal attached. It is a no-brainer for the right one since it has a lot of audience-pleasing elements that could make it a sleeper hit commercially.
Woodall plays Niki, a brilliant pianist whose musical career goes up in smoke when he develops a devastating hearing condition called Hyperacusis, something that causes him acute pain whenever loud noise occurs. He has to wear ear plugs at all times, but because of it his hearing is actually so acute it makes him an ideal piano tuner, a job that requires pinpoint pitch perfect abilty, something that helps his 88 year old partner in a small business for tuning. That partner is none other than Harry Horowitz played by the inimitable Dustin Hoffman in a supporting role he knocks out of the park with charm and some of the best lines in Roher’s and co-writer Robert Ramsey’s smartly crafted script. The pair service various customers in higher end homes with pianos, even asked at times by clients if they can also fix the toilet.
Niki is such a good fit for this job he almost seems like a son to Harry, as well as a necessity because Harry no longer has the hearing required for it. At a family dinner Harry’s doting wife Marla (a wonderful Tovah Feldshuh) asks him where his hearing aids are. When Harry replies he accidentally put them in the safe, changed the combination, and now can’t remember what it is, Niki comes to the rescue, taking the safe to his apartment and using his heightened hearing talents to crack the code.
This talent gets more recognition when on another tuning job in a big mansion, annoying noise from another room leads him to find three foreign-sounding guys attempting to open a safe with loud equipment there. He asks them to stop as the group’s leader, Uri (Lior Raz), resists but avoids confrontation when Niki just manages to crack the safe for them. Impressed Uri drops him a card and says he knows how he can make a lot more money than tuning pianos.
Circumstances arise including medical expenses that careened out of control for Marla and Harry and Niki does indeed feel the pinch for more cash so he takes them up on some jobs cracking safes, not a smart move as it turns out since they are increasingly more dangerous as Uri and his bumbling gang are basically thieves involved with other criminial elements including a cryptocurrency ring. At the same time Niki is getting in a big over his head with that, he is also involved with Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), a music student with the kind of extraordinary piano talents he had. Spurred on by Harry’s awkward matchmaking he does set out on a slowly building relationship with her, even as she is torn to just keep on her academic path and career dreams. This goes a bit south when he gifts her with a rolex that turns out to be stolen from one of those safecracking ventures with Uri.
As the romcom first half meets the more menacing crime thriller second half (where Hoffman’s spirit is diminished) , Niki finds he has been making some very bad life decisions that complicate matters for everyone. That Roher deftly manages the shifting, sometimes violent tones of the piece, is really impressive for a director who to this point has only done documentaries, albeit one, Navalny, that made him an Oscar winner at age 29. This is a different can of worms, and both screenplay and direction seem so assured it feels like he has been doing this a lot longer than he has. It is a movie about trying to find a second chance when it seems your life has turned upside down by the cards dealt to you, and Roher has shown great skill in lifting it well above genre.
In addition to the excellent work from Woodall, Liu is an enchanting presence in the film as well, convincingly demonstrating skills of an accomplished pianist, something she had to learn from scratch. Israeli actor Lior Raz, sounding very Russian here (although the nationalities aren’t revealed) adds some odd charm to his bad guy lifting him above the one dimensional stereotype we often find with these characters. Jean Reno also turns up briefly, more as a convenient plot device (that strains coincidence a little too far), as a music maestro for whom Ruthie is aiming to work. Best of the supporting cast though is old pro Hoffman who proves he hasn’t diminished with time at all and manages to make Harry much missed when he isn’t on screen.
Among the technical credits , Oscar winner Johnnie Burns (The Zone Of Interest) contributes exquistie sound design, going deep into the nightmare of Niki’s hearing disease, adding immeasurably to the power of Woodall’s performance and the film’s impact. The music is also key here with Executive Music Producer Marcus de Vries providing all the on-screen original music, and Will Bates the nice underscore, all of it crucial as well.
The Black Bear production is produced by JoAnne Sellar, Lila Yacoub, Teddy Schwarzman, Michael Heimler
Title: Tuner
Festival: Telluride Film Festival
Sales Agent: UTA
Director: Daniel Roher
Screenplay: Daniel Roher and Robert Ramsey
Cast: Leo Woodall, Havana Rose Liu, Dustin Hoffman, Tovah Feldshuh, Lior Raz, Jean Reno
Running Time: 1 hour and 47 minutes
