‘Tuner’ Review: Every Piece Has Perfect Pitch in This Symphonic Thriller

Tuner, Daniel Roher‘s first narrative feature film, sounds simple on paper. An aging piano tuner named Harry (played with delightful gusto by Dustin Hoffman), who runs a piano tuning business, takes an apprentice, Niki (Leo Woodall), under his wing to support him in tuning pianos around New York City. Eventually, things take a turn, and their lives are suddenly encompassed in a descent into the darker side of the city. What that doesn’t communicate is the undeniable style, energy, and technical hypnotism of the execution of such a plot, and that’s where Tuner really plays on key.

‘Tuner’ Is a Symphony of Precise Parts

The most important part of the story is Niki’s hearing condition called hyperacusis — his sensitivity to loud noises is nearly debilitating, hence why he very rarely ever takes out his earplugs and most of the time operates with noise-cancelling headphones on. The hyperacusis does come with its benefits, however, allowing him to be incredibly skilled at tuning pianos, but also giving him the opportunity to perfect another oddball vocation: cracking safes.

When he returns to a client’s house late one evening to tune a piano, he runs into a group of guys breaking into the homeowner’s safe. Leaving the scene isn’t really an option, so he helps them. Soon, Harry’s medical bills become so vast that Niki decides to help the group of thieves on a few jobs to get enough money to pay off the medical debt. And thus plays the first note of what is soon to be his orchestral movement involving theft, deceit, and broken dreams.

The film itself, based entirely around pianos and jazz, feels like a living, breathing piece of music, with Leo Woodall acting as the ever-imperative conductor. Immersed within a framework that echoes the energy of Michael Mann‘s Thief, blended with the snappy editing of a Damien Chazelle film, and guided by a dark set of events akin to a Quentin Tarantino feature, Tuner confirms Woodall to be a future force in Hollywood.

Alongside a Dustin Hoffman that keeps the movie light on its feet from time to time, and a love interest played wonderfully by Havana Rose Liu, all of the different sections of the so-called “band” play in unison, delivering a piece that is enthralling to listen to (and watch). In addition to the performances and the script, which is played so naturally that it feels as though you are peering in on this set of events unfolding in real life, the score is brilliantly constructed to move in parallel with the descent of the events of the film, moving from jazz to pop to thumping rave beats.

‘Tuner’ Is the Gem of TIFF 2025

There’s a dash of Whiplash and a whiff of Goodfellas amongst the unique ingenuity of Tuner that makes it feel simultaneously like a movie you’ve seen before, yet a concoction that has never been brewed up quite like this. The movie sticks to the story it sets out to tell, progressively getting darker to the point where you might squirm in your chair for some sequences, like I did.

Premiering at TIFF 2025, amongst other big world premieres like Rental Family and Wake Up Dead Man, makes Tuner the gem of the fest without question. It’s undoubtedly smaller amongst the global slate of movies, unfortunately putting it at a natural disadvantage in terms of who will see it and how its distribution sorts out. But one thing is certain, Tuner is the trumpet solo in the orchestra of the rest of the festival, and a movie I cannot recommend seeing enough.

Tuner does not currently have a US distributor or release date. Follow Agents of Fandom on socials for all the latest entertainment news and reviews.