Tuner, which screened Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival, is an engaging crime caper through the unique lens of sound. This angle makes the criminal danger feel fresh.
On an after hours job, Niki discovers Uri's (Lior Raz) crew (Nissan Sakira and Gil Cohen) robbing the safe upstairs. Niki helps them open it just so he can get back to work tuning, but shows Uri his value.
When Harry goes to the hospital, Niki accepts jobs from Uri to pay the medical bills. Uri runs a security company and takes items he believes his clients won't notice missing.
The heist scenes are suspenseful. Instead of Ocean's 11 beating casino security, Niki just needs total quiet. Uri's goons eating or using their phones compromise the job, let alone ambient sounds like airplanes.
The sound design highlights how painful the sounds most people take for granted can be. Niki always wears earplugs and earmuffs in noisy environments because of hyperacusis, which makes him "allergic to loud noise."One need not have a hearing condition to empathize though. Modern life is full of unwanted sound and most people are not aware that the noises they make while eating snacks or playing video games impact others.
Most people forced to listen also aren't trying to crack a safe, but they are trying to have conversations or focus on other things. Society should unite to create more peace and quiet.
Ruthie tests Niki's ability to identify complex chords in a better form of flirting than most rom-com meet-cutes.
Harry awkwardly forces Niki and Ruthie to spend time together but it works despite their embarrassment. Later a montage combines their dating, safe cracking scenes and Niki paying more and more hospital debt.
The script, co-written by Robert Ramsey and director Daniel Roher, escalates the danger of each heist. Uri gets Niki involved in riskier jobs with more variables, and now Uri has leverage over Niki for participating.
But, even the piano tuning scenes are interesting. Anyone being good at their job is inherently compelling, so watching the way Niki airs out keys and hammers soaked in a leak is as intriguing as the heists.
Customers take that expertise for granted though. Clients often ask Niki and Harry to fix other things around the house as if their specialty is applicable to wifi or toilets.
Liu and Woodall show Ruthie and Niki's connection through body language. The way Liu leans in for a kiss and just the way she sits once she's comfortable around him says more than any banter, but they have good banter too.
Even Ruthie's hesitation at falling in love so fast feels authentic. Her pressures in an elite music program also provide an apt contrast to Niki's desperation to solve a real-life financial crisis.
Roher crafts both a crime thriller and romance with the same precision with which Niki approaches piano tuning or safe cracking. Tuner honors the genre with characters and consequences distinct enough to stand apart.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
