After turning global politics into edge-of-your-seat cinema with his Oscar-winning documentary Navalny, Daniel Roher makes the leap into fiction with his narrative debut - and it may just be the summer's most delightful surprise.
Woodall proves more than up to the task in his first big-screen leading role as former music prodigy Niki, and current apprentice to piano tuner Harry (a welcome return for two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman), who is drawn into a life of crime.
For Niki, who lives with hyperacusis, every creak, and passing conversation lands as though it's been blasted through a PA system. For most people, that kind of sensory overload would be a curse; for Niki, it becomes a strange kind of advantage. His heightened hearing allows him to pick up details no one else can detect, including the delicate internal clicks of a safe. And so a new career path blossoms.
Part crime caper, part rom-com, the setup is familiar enough that its trajectory can be guessed early on, and the script rarely strays far from well-worn heist thriller territory. Still, what keeps it alive is something far less mechanical: genuine emotional stakes and a cast whose chemistry feels entirely lived-in.
It’s the pitch-perfect pairing of rising star Woodall and two-time Academy Award winner Hoffman that keeps the film humming.
Hoffman performs with the easy assurance of a veteran who knows precisely when to command attention and when to step back and let a scene breathe.
Woodall more than holds his own, radiating star quality while bringing unexpected nuance and vulnerability to Niki. Together, they turn the smallest exchanges into highlights, giving Tuner the spark it needs to rise above its familiar framework.
Co-writers Daniel Roher and Robert Ramsey juggle the movie's heist thrills, romance and humour with a lightness of touch that makes each narrative turn feel like an adventure.
As if the film didn't already have enough Oscar hardware in the room, another winner joins the credits: sound designer Johnnie Burn, an Academy Award winner for The Zone of Interest.
Drawing on his own lived experience of temporary hyperacusis following a domestic accident at 19, he shapes every layer of the film's audio into an extension of Niki’s fractured perception, where ordinary sound becomes heightened, invasive and impossible to ignore.
The result is a soundscape that does not merely illustrate his condition but makes it inescapably felt. A smoke alarm, for instance, does not simply blare; it overwhelms, forcing the viewer to flinch in sympathy.
Burn's meticulous design and Will Bates’ jazz-inflected score converge into an immersive soundscape that powers the film's pulse.
For all its familiar contours, Tuner rarely misses a beat. Must be seen - and heard- on the big screen.
