by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $15.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Dustin Hoffman, Leo Woodall, Havana Rose Liu, Jean Reno, Lior Raz
Intro:
… a well-constructed cinematic ballad that manages to harmonise brutal genre trappings and audio with light and breezy NY rom-com aesthetics
Tuner is often painful to watch. Not necessarily because of its emotional or thematic elements, but because of how the film itself is constructed. There are regular intervals where the sound mix is bathed in sharp, piercing tones that don’t so much feel like audio, as like a bowl full of pure noise has just been poured into your skull – this is likely to be the most wince-inducing theatrical release of the year that isn’t just a straight horror movie.
It’s also a big part of what makes this film as brilliant as it is.
Much like with its piano tuning and safe cracking lead Niki (Leo Woodall), Tuner is all about the smaller technical details, and it’s in embracing such details that the film craft shines.
Director Daniel Roher (Navalny, making his narrative film debut) and editor Greg O’Bryant must have taken notes from the audio precision of Baby Driver when splicing this feature together, and we’re not just saying that because this also features a needle drop of ‘Unsquare Dance’. The way the various shots are weaved together, like a visual concerto, is immensely satisfying just to watch unfold, making everything from a simple drive through crowded New York streets to the finesse of operating a combination dial into impressively smooth viewing.
But the real virtuoso here is Johnnie Burn and his sound design team. How they mix together Will Bates’ sometimes-jazzy-sometimes-glitchy soundtrack, Marius De Vries’ piano compositions, the needle drops, and the clicks and taps of the safe cracking sequences is incredible all on its own… but then there’s the aforementioned painful dimensions of it too.
In delivering a full POV sound mix of what the world sounds like to Niki, who has hyperacusis, Tuner manages to create some of the most nightmarishly realistic sensory overloads ever put to film. Whether filtered through his ear plugs, the earmuffs he wears over them, or at full unprotected blast, that auditory pain becomes a terrific instructive tool. Because sensory overload is more than just ‘sound too loud’ or ‘light too bright’; it’s like trying to think through a cloud of static.
To that end, the way that the film handles Niki’s disability is commendable. With the presence of Rain Man himself Dustin Hoffman as his mentor Harry and its potentially-nauseating tagline of “Everybody has one hidden talent” (which, combined with the previous point, feels like a softening of something like “Everyone is a little bit on the spectrum”, given the co-morbidity of ASD and hyperacusis), this easily could have fallen into inspo-porn ‘look at the disabled exist in spite of condition’ fodder.But instead, there’s proper care in the handling of Niki’s hyperacusis. The framing of his own musical gifts, in conjunction with his day job and budding relationship with composer Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu, seemingly filling in the blanks of where she disappeared to during Power Ballad), also speaks to the pressures common among “former gifted children”, where his preternatural ability has been made such a crucial part of who he is as a person… that later in life, when such gifts are less pronounced (or, in Niki’s case, out of his grasp because of his sound sensitivity), it feels like a piece of himself is missing.
Tuner is a well-constructed cinematic ballad that manages to harmonise brutal genre trappings and audio with light and breezy NY rom-com aesthetics; like if Nora Ephron directed a music video for Merzbow. Its understanding and ability to convey the realities of disability gives its shifting tones a sturdy nexus point, while its technical presentation creates a deeply cerebral connection with its lead character and his determination to make the most of what life has left him with. Be prepared to be extremely aware of any and all sounds on the way out of the cinema, but know that is only a fraction of the awareness shift that this film offers.
