‘Tuner’ is an Accomplished Fiction Debut from Daniel Roher
The path from documentarian to fiction filmmaker isn’t as smooth as one thinks (see, as a recent example, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Nyad), but Daniel Roher makes it look easy with the incredibly controlled Tuner. From winning an Academy Award in 2023 for his portrait of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny to making a documentary that attempts to unpack the advantages and risks of Artificial Intelligence, Roher’s documentaries challenge the filmmaking form and constantly involve the viewer in the subjects he captures. It makes him a perfect fit for a project that requires mastery of cinema’s visual and aural media, like Tuner.
What is the film Tuner about?
Rhythmically constructed like the feeling of being attacked by sharp-edged arpeggios, Roher’s movie is a propulsive, highly immersive piece of classical heist cinema whose conventional plot is elevated by its adaptive style and naturally charismatic performances. There isn’t a better way to open your movie than seeing piano tuner Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) mentor his protégé, Niki White (Leo Woodall), as they drive from house to house talking about the mercury contents of Tuna while tuning highly expensive pianos.
This immediately gives the movie a human quality that’s an intrinsic part of Roher’s documentary work. It pulls us into the world of piano tuning before we learn more about Niki, a former pianist whose diagnosis of hyperacusis has prevented him from pursuing music further. Niki cannot be in the presence of spaces with loud or unpredictable noises, because his hearing is far too sensitive to environmental sounds. But years of exposure therapy have made him able to be near pianos, which he now tunes with his lifelong octogenarian friend.
One day, while tuning a piano inside an upper-class house, Niki meets Uri (Lior Raz), a “security expert,” who, along with his accomplices, is in the process of stealing the home’s safe. Not knowing they are thieves, Niki helps Uri open the safe with his hypersensitive hearing, which prompts the Israeli-born thief to come up with an idea: hire the tuner for a series of odd jobs that will allow them to break into complex safes and retrieve sensitive equipment. Niki initially refuses, but after Harry suffers a near-fatal heart attack and his wife (Tovah Feldshuh) cannot cover the medical bills, he has no choice but to turn to Uri as a way of paying Harry’s debt—and fast.
A terrific cinematic experience from filmmaker Daniel Roher
A classic story told with real energy, Tuner doesn’t let up from the moment it begins and slowly immerses us into a world that most of us are likely unfamiliar with. I’ll admit I’m not very interested in piano (or instrument) tuning as a whole, but Roher has developed a precise language that makes each aspect of this endeavor feel urgent.
With the aid of Oscar-winning sound designer Johnnie Burn, Roher creates a vast soundscape for the filmmaker to play in, such as putting us into Niki’s headspace in unexpected ways and making us aware of what hyperacusis feels like. It can sometimes make the sounds (a bit) loud on the cinema screen, but it’s worth it for a movie that throws everything in front of us.
There’s a real urgency to the way Roher and co-screenwriter Robert Ramsey progress Niki’s emotional journey, even if, on the surface, it feels archetypal. From Ruthie, a love interest with a passion for composing music (wonderfully portrayed by Havana Rose Liu), to narrative developments that we think we’ve seen before, one has the sense that we know exactly what’s coming for the protagonist…
That is, until Roher surprisingly flips this story on its head and introduces a new player late in the movie, played by Jean Reno. What his role in the picture is, I’ll leave you to discover, but it could’ve absolutely derailed the direction of such an efficient thriller if the payoff wasn’t earned.
I’ll say this: the movie has been leading the character to one specific moment, an action he’s been refusing to do ever since his diagnosis and subsequent time in exposure therapy. It’s the one thing that will allow him to finally show Ruthie what he’s made of and move forward in the next stage of his life with confidence. Harry knows. Marla knows. Ruthie knows, but is Niki finally ready?
The entire movie builds up to this specific scene because, for the bulk of Tuner, we examine a protagonist at war with himself more than with thieves that attempt to exploit his condition for their benefit. Oh, sure, Uri is smarmy and knows exactly how to weaken Niki by simply using an airhorn to debilitate him, but the real battle lies within the protagonist’s self.
Once you understand this, examining Niki becomes all the more interesting, and how Roher creates a sense of poetry in motion as he moves from one location to the next feels amazingly thrilling. It helps that Woodall gives his best performance as a complex tuner whose love of music is sadly overshadowed by a condition that defines him.
Dustin Hoffman’s terrific bit part as Harry provides Niki with a human counterpoint that reminds him of what’s most important in his unstable world. Roher gives them so much room to play that it’s easy to latch onto and understand Niki’s quest as fundamentally based in decency, knowing that what he’s doing is wrong, but the people closest to him need help.
Final thoughts on Tuner
Like The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which was released earlier this year, Tuner runs a bit too long and interminably stretches its climax. That said, it culminates in a final scene of pure emotional power that distills exactly what the film has been about from the beginning. One can’t fully dismiss such a project that arrives only once in our lifetimes, especially for Roher. He has been looking for a way in fiction filmmaking ever since he changed the way documentaries were shaped just a few years ago.
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