‘Tuner’ is movie you’ve got to hear

By John E. Finley-Weaver in San Diego

I have been evermore enamored with a fun, re-telling of tales. Tuner is such a one, and a-two, and a-three. It’s a Canadian superhero kung fu movie, but with no kung fu, and set in present-day New York.

Hear me out.

The film’s protagonist, Niki White, which translates from the Greek “Victory of the White Army [of the keys of the piano]” is a former pianist suffering from hyperacusis. Hyperacusis is a weak-tuchus’d super-power that curses the afflicted with super-sensitive, often painful, hyper-hearing. Niki wears earplugs AND circumaural muffs. Psycho-pathologically, Niki lives in New York City, the crowdiest, loudiest, and most cacophonous bourg this side of the Greenwich Meridian. Go figure.

Niki’s kung fu master, a master piano tuner played by Dustin Hoffman, is Harry Horowitz, whose alliterative moniker matches his allure, his love of music, and his match-making skills. Harry is dying. He’s doing a decrescendo al fine, as all kung fu and wizard masters must do, in the literary and cinematic worlds of Joseph Campbell’s Hero Journeys.

Question: What’s a lad to do to save his mentor and surrogate Dad?

Answer: Go on a quest in order to acquire hordes of gold in order to pay for Harry’s American healthcare bills!

Question: How shall Niki-Nike-Victory-in-White-with-a-Little-Black-to-Symbolize-the-Pains-of-His-Quest-and-Links-to-the-Piano seek and find the magical, treasured items to cure his beloved master?

Answer: Use that pesky condition of his to tickle the tumblers of rich people’s castle safes. And when he’s not finding keys to the cure, he can woo his story’s Princess with whom he has a pitch perfect, secondary Meet Cute (and who has her own quest), and do battle against the gray antagonist, Uri, radiated menacingly-nice by Israeli actor Lior Raz.

Easy peasy, bada bing.

And in the end, harmoniously, a little ebony with Niki’s ivory, Niki sits victorious.

Leo Woodall plays Niki, a Brit playing a Yank. Good job, Kid. Not once did I hear any of that Shakespeare talk come from your mouth. Real legit.

And then, there’s Tovah Feldshuh as Harry’s loving wife, Marla. You might remember her from television’s Holocaust and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Walking Dead. She is also the actor with the most smile-inducing name since Whoopi Goldberg.

Relative newcomer, Havana Rose Liu, is Ruthie, the ambitious, conservatory student and “princess” of this story, convincingly and rightfully obsessing over a mini-symphonic piece of her own making. During one phase of their courtship, she is won over by Niki’s advice and briefly, just a poco, he becomes her, uh, Auricle of Hi-Fi.

And do the characters Ruthie and Marla pass the Bechdel Test, wherein at least two, named women have a conversation about anything that does not pertain to any male character? Not really. But, Ruthie and her conservatory’s dean, Dr. Madeline Richard, played by Jean Yoon, do share a congratulatory chat after Ruthie’s successful performance of her composed piece before a very important audience.

Tuner is Jewish Canadian director Daniel Roher’s narrative film debut (co-written with Robert Ramsey), having won an Academy Award for his documentary Navalny (2022), which explores Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s mystery poisoning by Russian President He Who Shall Not Be Named.

And I must tip my metaphorical hat to this film’s makers for not fetishizing or infantilizing the Asian hottie. I assume the successful influences of the #MeToo Movement, combined, perhaps, with an on-set consultant, and co-workers, wives, mothers, daughters, nieces, and lessons learned from the recent [and continuing] past. Or maybe, the land of Canada makes for some decent mensches? Who knows? Or maybe H. Rose Liu herself?

And since this is a movie about music and sound, I confess that I continue to wallow in my oft-forgotten and equally oft-remembered envy of anyone who grew up speaking a tonal language. Such fortunate bastards, them, with their higher incidence to possess perfect or absolute pitch. Grrrr, . . . lucky geo-linguistic beneficiaries. I’m like, totally jelly. Am I able, for example, to distinguish a fourth octave G sharp from a fourth octave G natural? Uh, maybe, . . .  if I hear the notes four or five times. Can someone from Cambodia, China, Laos, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand, or Vietnam distinguish the same notes in two tries or fewer? You betcha.

I weep rhythmically euphonic teardrops a-crashing at the thought of musical talent from those lands, unheard, undeveloped, or lost merely due to lack of instrumentation or money. A shame.

Still, where Muses and Talent meet, Art blooms.

You, go to a movie house and see and hear Tuner.

Do it. You’ll feel better.

You’re welcome.

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John E. Finley-Weaver is a freelance writer fascinated by cinema and music.