We can hear a lot here, and it gets loud.
When I found out “Tuner” was about a crime movie with the main protagonist having a hearing condition, I was thinking back to “Baby Driver,” which had a young getaway driver with tinnitus. We can hear a lot in these films, and we can have fun seeing how they play their respective games. And these movies never exploit these kinds of hearing conditions for entertainment value, but instead allow characters to represent them in unique lights.
“Tuner” has lesser commercial appeal (and Black Bear Pictures distributes it), but that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining, because it is. It forgets the cliches of the police and their guns and the obligatory car chases, and focuses on how the young man enters the crime world and how his condition makes things complicated. Allow me to clarify on that. We meet Niki White (Leo Woodall), a former piano player turned piano tuner, who has a hearing condition, hyperacusis, which means that he’s allergic to loud noises. And yes, it’s a real condition. He wears ear plugs and headphones over them when he’s working and walking and driving around. And whenever there is a loud noise, the pitch is boosted up to show us the pain that this young man goes through. As he says: “You’d be surprised how loud the world is.”
His uncle and mentor Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) ends up in the hospital and his medical bills are too expensive for their business to afford. Before that, the old man leaves his hearing aids in the safe and can’t remember the combination he changed. So, Niki watches instruction videos and gets a kick out of it. And one day, while tuning a rich person’s piano, he hears some home security guys trying to open up a safe, and he tries to tell them to quiet down. But they need to open the safe and are easily impressed by Niki’s new skills. The boss Uri (Lior Raz) offers the young man a job, which can help pay for Harry’s medical bills.
And then there’s Niki’s new love interest, a piano student named Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), who is working on a masterpiece to impress the maestro (Jean Reno). They meet when he tunes her school’s piano and when he shares his key notes. And little does she know that he gives her stolen Rolex watch, which he says he bought from a state sale.
We can already tell that the young man would be in danger when it comes to his new life of crime. I won’t spoil what happens, but it can be very loud. And I want you to be as absorbed and shocked as I was.
“Tuner” was co-written and directed by Canadian documentarian Daniel Roher, whose “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band” was the first movie I saw at the Boulder International Film Festival. He has a voice whether we’re talking about feature films or documentaries, and also has a certain “Good Will Hunting” spirit within. I liked Woodall as one of Renee Zellweger’s new suitors in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” and I admire him even more here for how he eases into his character. He’s able to convince us of Niki’s hearing condition, his taste in music, and how he tries to pay attention to the crime game. Just as long as loud nosies don’t affect him.
When I saw this with my cousins at the Boulder International Film Festival, we were talking about what happens at the end, and we were guessing the possible outcomes. In certain cases, movie goers seem to be in the Frank Capra stage where the guy gets the girl and they live happily ever after. And I was reminding them that not all movies have to follow the same traditions, and they can’t always be happy. They can be different, and that’s what I seek in movies.
Sometimes, it can be a little melodramatic with the romance, but it can also lead to dangerous territory. And the movie, itself, knows how to kid, shock, and charm the audience. And therefore, the pianos get tuned and the music sounds great.
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