| Tuner is a smash hit. And I hope that sentence remains true in the box office sense, it deserves to and has the potential to bring audiences to the theater. With an original story and thoroughly entertaining (and unique) characters, Tuner quietly (and sometimes very loudly) packs a punch. It touches on capitalism and consumerism, trauma and redemption, and it doesn’t need to go deeper because it has a full plot and confidence in its complete approach. | | 2025
Directed by: Daniel Roher
Screenplay by: Daniel Roher, Robert Ramsey
Starring: Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, and Havana Rose Liu
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Harry (Dustin Hoffman) is a piano tuner and teaches Nicky (Leo Woodall) everything he knows, although primarily it’s really just about food and misguided advice on health and relationships. You’re probably wondering if piano tuners can really make a living tuning pianos as their full time job? Well, yes and no, there are still a lot of wealthy clients in the New York suburbs who still own pianos in their mansions and with all the music schools in the New York area can keep them fully booked. But it’s barely enough to live off of. With Harry in the hospital and medical bills they can’t afford, Nicky is going to take over the business but can’t buy the van and is in a bind.
The best part of this movie is Leo Woodall and the character of Nicky. Nicky has a hearing condition, which he characterizes as allergic to loud noises; all sounds are amplified to him and he physically can’t handle it. So life, especially life in New York City, is hard. He still has recurring trauma from the accident that left him in this condition. Harry and his wife Maria (Tovah Feldshuh) are sweet, parent-like figures to Nicky.
Harry meets cute Nicky with music student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu) – and, yes, that’s the phrasing I am sticking with “Harry meets cute” since if left to their own devices they would be nothing more than acquaintances but with Dustin Hoffman forcing their first date into existence, it is now a romantic pairing. Around the same time, Nicky is tuning a piano at some rich persons house but interrupts a robbery, one which he is able to speed up by using his listening skills to become a safe cracker.
From there, Nicky has to balance his blossoming criminal career, a relationship with a determined and gifted pianist (and oh, yes, Nicky used to be a pianist before the cryptically-mentioned accident), not run his piano tuning business into the ground, while also secretly paying for Harry’s hospital bills. Nicky is the perfect character to carry this plot out with and Leo Woodall – who is still very much defining his own career – gives a career-best performance, from his quiet acceptance to his newfound confidence and then watching everything he built destroy itself, and how he’ll begin to rebuild.
Thanks to the basic premise of a piano tuner becoming a safe cracker starring Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman, Tuner was my most anticipated film of TIFF 2025, and it lived up to what I was hoping it could be.
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