Niki White is a piano tuner. He’s also a gifted pianist who can no longer play because of hyperacusis. That means he hears everyday sounds as deafening. To play a piano with this condition would be agony. So, thanks to some earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones, he’s turned from playing pianos to tuning them. One probably pays better than the other—at least more regularly—though both require a special level of skill.

That skill is on display in Tuner, from director Daniel Roher, who co-wrote the screenplay with Robert Ramsey. Tuner is impressive in its construction and propulsion. For starters, Niki (Leo Woodall) is sensitive to sounds, and Roher and the sound team do a magnificent job highlighting how damn noisy the world is. From cars on the streets to safes in the closet. That’s where Niki’s skills shine.

How Niki comes to realize he can crack a safe is brilliant. His boss, Harry (Dustin Hoffman), locks his hearing aids in the house safe by mistake and has forgotten the combination. So Niki YouTubes how to crack a safe, and, lo and behold, he has just the ears for the job. A world opens before him.

How Niki comes to cracking one safe for hearing aids to how Niki comes to cracking multiple safes for a living, I will leave to Tuner. The plot is too good to spoil, too intelligent to get mired in details. As the movie hurdles toward its third act, things get out of control and goosey. That’s why I love it. Only in movies do tiny details echo large plot points. Only in a movie does one character turn to another and say: “We can’t take his holocaust watch, it’s bad juju.”

I’ve been hard on Roher in the past. I did not like his documentary, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, and I had quibbles with Navalny, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2023. Once Were Brothers is fine, but that’s because the biggest ego in the room is Robbie Robertson. I knew Roher was behind the scenes of Tuner, but he won me over in a matter of minutes thanks to the movie’s jazzy score and kinetic momentum. Roher should stick with narrative. He’ll go far.

Tuner is a delight. The movie has been playing festivals since last summer, but it is still exciting new moviegoers and finding a larger audience. Despite some of the wackiness that wraps up the third act, Tuner is the kind of movie that cracks through the noise.

Tuner (2025)
Directed by Daniel Roher
Screenplay by Daniel Roher, Robert Ramsey
Produced by Michael Heimler, Teddy Schwarzman, JoAnne Sellar, Lila Yacoub
Starring: Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu, Tovah Feldshuh, Lior Raz, Gil Cohen, Nissan Sakira
Black Bear, Rated R, Running time 107 minutes, Premiered Aug. 30, 2025, at the Telluride Film Festival

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