NEW YORK – Oscar-winning filmmaker Daniel Roher has made his feature-film debut with Tuner, a narrative drama centering on the professional lives of piano tuners in New York.
The production marks a strategic pivot for Roher, who previously earned an Academy Award for his 2022 documentary Navalny. By moving from political documentary to a scripted feature, Roher transitions into a different sector of the film industry, utilizing a cast that combines veteran cinematic talent with actors who have recently gained visibility through global streaming platforms.
Production and Casting Dynamics
The film stars Leo Woodall as Niki, a piano tuner characterized by exceptionally sensitive hearing and a reliance on earplugs to manage auditory stimuli. Woodall, who previously appeared in The White Lotus and One Day, provides a measured, interior performance described as a “soft glow” compared to the “megawatt charisma” seen in his television work, aligning with the film’s focus on close-up craft rather than spectacle.
Opposite Woodall is Dustin Hoffman, who portrays veteran tuner Harry Horowitz. The professional relationship between the two characters serves as the film’s anchor, with the narrative focusing on the specialized nature of piano tuning and the social friction that arises when high-net-worth clients treat skilled technicians as general laborers. The film repeatedly underscores the tension between highly trained artisans and the service-economy norms that govern many cultural institutions in major cities.
The cast also includes Havana Rose Liu as Ruthie, a student composer navigating the gatekeeping pressures of elite music education, and Lior Raz as Uri, a home security company owner whose business model depends on trust in physical security standards shaped by regulations such as New York’s General Business Law governing locksmiths and security installers.
Narrative Structure and Genre
Tuner is framed as a hybrid project, blending elements of a romantic comedy with those of a crime thriller. The plot develops when Niki discovers that his auditory sensitivity allows him to crack safes, a skill he first identifies after Harry forgets a safe combination. This conceit allows Roher to move the story from rehearsal rooms and conservatory corridors into the city’s apartments and offices, where questions of ownership, privacy and consent quietly shape everyday interactions with locked spaces.
The script, co-written by Roher, incorporates themes of class consciousness, specifically during interactions between the technical staff and the music conservatory environment. Those encounters echo broader debates in the cultural sector over who is visible on stage and who remains offstage yet indispensable, from instrument technicians to compliance staff charged with enforcing institutional risk and insurance requirements under frameworks such as the U.S. occupational safety regulations.
As the story progresses, it introduces a criminal element through the character of Uri. While Uri operates a legitimate security firm, he maintains a side operation robbing his own clients. Critical observations of the film note that while the character of Uri is portrayed as a shrewd psychological manipulator, some of the plot’s later turns are viewed as predictable, particularly once the ethical fault line between professional expertise and criminal exploitation is fully exposed.
The film is described as an “easy, unforced drama” that emphasizes character-driven scenes over plot acceleration. Roher’s approach keeps the camera close to workbenches, keyboards and doorframes, treating the minutiae of tuning and safecracking as a lens on how value is created, obscured and occasionally stolen in a city where trust is often formalized through contracts, service agreements and alarm codes rather than personal relationships.
Tuner is scheduled for release on 22 May in the US, 29 May in the UK, and 11 June in Australia, positioning the film to enter awards-season conversations later in the year if its blend of craft detail, star power and quietly political subtext finds an audience beyond the art-house circuit.
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