Tuner

At one point in this character-led drama, the protagonist is described as ‘Rain Man’ because he has a disability that is halfway to a superpower. Given that Dustin Hoffman is in a supporting role, it’s a distracting nod, but not inaccurate. Like Marvel’s Daredevil, piano tuner Nikki White (Leo Woodall) has exceptionally sensitive hearing, which has stymied his hopes of a career as a professional musician but comes in really handy for some off-the-books safecracking work. But can he maintain the criminal side hustle in the long term or will conscience, or circumstances, bring him down?

Director and co-writer Daniel Roher takes his sweet time in figuring it out. Roher was, until now, a documentarian; he won the Oscar for 2022’s Navalny. Perhaps that’s why he’s more interested in letting Nikki’s increasingly risky choices play out, and finding nuance and colour in his supporting characters. There’s Hoffman’s Harry Horowitz, an old-school craftsman with a bone-deep love of music, and his devoted but shrewd wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh, always smart casting). Havana Rose Liu plays gifted musician Ruthie, who’s working on her masterpiece and has no time for a boyfriend (she thinks). And there is Uri (Lior Raz), the criminally-minded security consultant who tempts Nikki to stray from the straight and narrow. He’s a thug and possibly a psycho, but Roher never treats him like a simple villain. He’s a businessman, as are those he preys upon.

Leo Woodall demonstrates real movie-star quality 

Tuner has a real sense of romance, as Harry and Nikki make their rounds of luxury homes and concert halls in New York and its suburbs through warmly coloured, crisply cut montages. Harry reminisces about the old days and shoots the shit with his stoic apprentice; Nikki sits quieter, earbuds perennially in place, blocking out almost all sound to enable him to function in the big city. This is certainly Woodall’s best big-screen role to date and possibly his best full stop; he demonstrates real movie-star quality and holds the screen without a word for long stretches. But eventually Roher realises that his film needs some action and we leave the When Harry Met Sally-looking streets in favour of some grungy outer boroughs locations and an impending sense of doom, or at least consequence.

But while that late attempt to raise the stakes leads to a significant step up in contrivance and coincidence, Roher never entirely loses the plot. It’s a light diversion rather than a symphonic masterpiece, but it’s still pleasantly in-tune entertainment.

Out in worldwide May 29, 2026.