Like a piano abandoned in the family living room after the kids go away to college, the highly structured theatrical crime thriller of the nineties and aughts has fallen out of tune over the years. Tuner’s arrival to the big screen this weekend, then, comes with the satisfaction of hearing a half-forgotten old standard played warmly, note for note. For those who saw it early, the overwhelming consensus seemed to be that documentarian Daniel Roher (Once We Were Brothers, Navalny)’s debut narrative feature is, simply put, classic. This is the kind of movie that, had it been released in 2010, would likely be a DVD shelf staple.
It’s the story of Niki, a working class New York piano tuner (Leo Woodall, The White Lotus) with hyperacusis (a clinical oversensitivity to sound), a loving and lovable but notably ailing mentor named Harry (Dustin Hoffman), mad medical bills to pay, and a chip on his shoulder the size of a major third. He used to be a piano prodigy; now he wears two layers of headphones all day lest the wail of a fire alarm knock him unconscious. Still, his preternaturally perfect pitch makes him ideally suited to prepare the instruments he no longer plays to outlet the ambitions and foibles of others–– the idle rich, the high powered professionals, the stressed-out music students. It also makes him the perfect criminal safe-cracker, a talent he comes into sideways when a late night date with a Steinway meant for Billy Joel goes awry because the robbers breaking in upstairs are being too noisy for him to work. The only solution: break in for them and get it done in half the time. When Harry ends up in the hospital soon thereafter, our young hero begins a double life as he tries to get the girl, a conservatory genius named Ruthie (a highly charismatic Havana Rose Liu), and get his father figure out of medical debt.
As this punchy, highly-calibrated premise indicates, Tuner is a zippy flick with sparkling dialogue, a jazz rhythm in its editing, and a lowkey vibe belied by its more-than-decent cinematography and handsome jazz soundtrack. It plays its narrative runs professionally, doling out believably sweet romance and criminal tension measure for measure, a laid back Baby Driver by way of that other recent, highly nostalgic Jewish NYC crime caper, Caught Stealing. (Marty Supreme of course plays the third note in this oddly overlapping cinematic chord this past year, though the relentless Safdie pitch would certainly shatter Niki’s eardrums).
Tuner for its part is satisfyingly squeaky clean, pleasantly plucky, and far too overtly scripty for its own good. Like its protagonist, it’s funny and easy going, a diverting pleasure to watch, but too noble by half. Roher’s script, co-written with Robert Ramsey, spends more time than necessary on justifying the goodness of Niki’s intentions. Familiar story beats can also sometimes read too plainly on screen, the narrative equivalent of a Suzuki sheet music primer. Hoffman’s character for example clearly suffers from Screenplay Disease, though his carefully limited screen time might suggest the filmmakers had as much trouble paying his bills as Niki does Harry’s. The falling action takes on a similarly studious quality, inadvertently paralleling Ruthie, our young composer, openly cribbing her inspirations from her heroes. “To create harmony out of chaos,” one character tells another about halfway into Tuner, “you gotta be okay with imperfection.” Alas, the filmmaker didn’t take this note to heart.
Still, the satisfaction of a script this familiar and professionally well-executed is likely too good for fans of this genre to be overwhelmingly disappointed by even the most boilerplate aspects of Tuner. The scenarios are all clever and unique enough (a flirtation over pasta and piano keys on the floor, say) to make this feature of this sweet, well-coiffedly shaggy feel less like a bug and more like the price of admission–– particularly in the year 2026 when proudly middlebrow thrillers like these are more often relegated to the grey-washed, second-screen optimized algorithmic obscurity of Netflix. Tuner is an earnest dad movie played with a lot of heart, perfect for a matinee or a casual date night, and it’s more than worthy as a debut narrative feature, too; soul just comes with practice.
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