Documentarian Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for NAVALNY, returns to our screens with his first fiction feature. Co-written with Robert Ramsay (INTOLERABLE CRUELTY), the movie is about a young piano tuner called Niki who suffers from an acute sensitivity to sound that ended his career as a virtuoso concert pianist. He has to wear headphones to muffle sound, but his pitch-perfect musical sense makes him an amazing piano tuner, and by a twist of fate, also an amazing safe-cracker.
The plot mechanics are thrown into gear when Niki's beloved and aged mentor Harry suffers a heart attack and accumulates massive medical bills. Niki slips into helping a security company pilfer from their clients. This also ends up implicating his new girlfriend, a talented pianist and composer called Ruthie, through a coincidental plot device that really brought me out of this otherwise excellent film.
There's a lot to love here. Daniel Roher knows how to cut a brisk and exciting montage. The new music by Marius de Vries is beautiful and the way in which it is used reminded me of another excellent LFF film, WHIPLASH. The music is complemented by the the sound design, which both depicts the movie's tension and Niki's crippling condition. It was no surprise to discover that the sound design was by Johnnie Burns, whose work in THE ZONE OF INTEREST was some of the most stunning sound work I have ever heard.
Kudos to the co-writers for creating a film that is often very funny but also emotional and thrilling. And kudos to the entire cast. The White Lotus' Leo Woodall has starred in feature films before, but it feels as though his performance as Niki will be his breakout role. He has to essay everything from nonchalance to deep hurt to peril and does so beautifully. Dustin Hoffman is absolutely hilarious and charismatic in an extended cameo as Niki's mentor Harry. And the two leading ladies, Havana Rose Liu (LURKER) and Tovah Feldshuh do their best with smaller but still important roles.
This film is not without its flaws, but it shows real flair, confidence and foregrounds some phenomenal performances. I am surprised that it does not yet have a commercial release date.
TUNER has a running time of 109 minutes. It played Telluride, Toronto and London.
No comments:
Post a Comment