Tuner review

TUNER: 

THE BABY DRIVER OF MOVIES ABOUT PIANO TUNERS! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

BLACK BEAR PICTURES

Leo Woodall in Tuner

 

            A gifted piano tuner finds himself wrapped up in a life of crime in Tuner, the new film from director Daniel Roher (Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, Navalny, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist) in his first narrative feature outing. Confession time, I actually never saw a single trailer for this movie in theaters, and aside from seeing the poster a few times in theater lobbies, I knew practically nothing about it until I watched the trailer online. 

            It looked interesting when I finally did watch the trailer on YouTube, and it sort of gave me Baby Driver vibes a bit, except nowhere near as slick as that movie, but definitely similar DNA in certain places. A man with special hearing gets involved with a group of criminals and by the end, has to figure a way out of all this. 

            We’ve seen that before, but I’m all for it if a film can make something unique out of it, and Tuner does just that. I enjoyed this film and thought it was a really solid crime thriller with an incredible performance by Leo Woodall (The White Lotus, One Day, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy), who absolutely steals the show. 

            The film follows Niki White (Woodall), a once-promising piano player who, after being diagnosed with hyperacusis, can no longer play the piano and now works as a piano tuner with his mentor, Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman-The Graduate, Kramer VS Kramer, Meet the Parents franchise), trying to get by. One day, while tuning a wealthy person’s piano, his heightened sense of hearing draws the attention of a group of criminals trying to open their safe upstairs, and see his gift as useful for opening safes, which could give Niki the money he needs. 

            However, the more jobs he gets and a budding romance with a composition student, Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu-Bottoms, Power Ballad, Elden Ring), complicating things, the more dangerous and deadly it gets. 

            The film also stars Lior Raz (Fauda, 6 Underground, Gladiator II) as Uri, Tovah Feldshuh (Law & Order, Kissing Jessica Stein, The Walking Dead) as Harry’s wife, Marla Horowitz, and Jean Reno (Léon: The Professional, Mission: Impossible, Godzilla (1998)) as Marius Maissner. 

            Overall, Tuner is a finely tuned and exhilarating crime thriller with Woodall giving a superb performance as the Tuner and Roher showcasing his directing talents outside the documentary genre and doing it very well. Do I think it’s as good as Baby Driver? No, but I was engaged and captivated throughout the film and wanted to know where everything was going. 

            Like I said in the beginning, it has a similar premise to Baby Driver and hits some of the same beats as that movie, but where Baby Driver was more outlandish and pulpier with Edgar Wright’s fast-paced directing and editing, Tuner is more grounded in reality and not quite as flashy or stylized as that film. I found both films to be very effective in terms of their tone and execution. This one managed to make blowing an air horn at someone look like the most graphic and intense thing ever filmed; that’s definitely an accomplishment. 

            Baby Driver is a fun, entertaining ride, while Tuner is near-constant tension (I just realized I said that three times over the past few movie reviews I did recently) and uses its sound design to deliver a truly unnerving experience as if loud noises are like something brutal and bloody happening onscreen. The already mentioned air horn, a fire alarm going off, and even people doing extremely mundane stuff is made more intense through Leo Woodall’s Niki’s ears. 

As if you couldn’t tell, the sound design is phenomenal in this movie and features an incredible mix that makes even the greatest IMAX releases blush (FYI, this film is not released in IMAX). The way the sound is edited and mixed makes you feel like you’re Niki going through all this and tests the power of your cinema speakers, the movie technically premiered in 2025 and the fact it did not receive an Oscar nomination for Sound Design this year really pisses me off now that I’ve seen it because the sound design here puts Christopher Nolan to shame, yeah, I just fucking said that (BTW still looking forward to The Odyssey)! 

Leo Woodall, in his first lead role, is amazing and gives a truly exceptional performance as Niki, a man who had a lot of potential, but those dreams were shattered by a sensitive hearing condition. Woodall perfectly plays a guy who’s reserved and calm, but mentally defeated, and has amusing banter with Dustin Hoffman’s Harry (A cranky old man who doesn’t like wearing his hearing aids) and even stronger chemistry with his love interest, Havana Rose Liu’s Ruthie. 

Aside from Bottoms, I haven’t seen Havana Rose Liu in many projects, but she is magnificent in this as an inspiring piano student who’s basically living the dream Niki wishes he could live, and it’s because of that they formed a relationship in the first place. Niki and Ruthie’s romance could have easily been a low point in the movie, but thanks to Woodall and Liu’s charm, it’s actually compelling and gives the film a lot of emotional weight. 

Yeah, Tuner was a pleasant surprise and a really solid first narrative film from Daniel Roher and a stellar leading vehicle for Leo Woodall. Through brilliant sound design, outstanding performances, and gripping storytelling, it’s a near-perfect melody you’ll want to hear again and again.