Click here to listen to the interview.
When I spoke with Daniel Roher on April 9, 2026, about his sensory bending, deeply human film, TUNER, I had to spend a few minutes off-mic thanking him for his recent documentary, THE AI DOC: OR HOW I LEARNED TO BE AN APOCLYOPTIMIST. If you haven’t seen it, you should because it is easily one of the most intelligent, engrossing, and genuinely entertaining films of the year in any category, never mind that it puts the whole AI thing in a framework that lets us hope it doesn’t presage the end of mankind.
Back to TUNER, which features a knockout performance from Dustin Hoffman as Henry, as a piano tuner losing his hearing, and a revelatory one from Leo Woodall as Niki, his apprentice, and ersatz son, whose own issues with sound provide Roher with the opportunity to immerse an audience in a different experience of living in the world.
The story involves piano tuning as an entrée into the world of safecracking while it ponders letting go of dreams and coming to terms with change. It’s a compelling premise done with exquisite attention to, and imaginative externalization of, the ci-mentioned sensory experience, but the core of the film, the very beating heart, is the relationship between Henry and Niki, which is loving and testy and strikes, ahem, a perfect pitch of emotional truth.
One of the elements that stood out for me was the use of the song Tenderly, and we started our conversation with why that was the perfect song for Henry to play before moving on to the way we get to see people in full frame actually playing the piano as their characters.
We finished up with what the first day of filming his first narrative feature was like, using visuals to illuminate sound, and the perfect imperfection of Leo Woodhall’s eyelashes.
Roher directed from a script he co-wrote with Robert Ramsey and it is his feature film directorial debut. It co-stars Havana Rose Liu as Niki’s pianist girlfriend, Jean Reno as the imperious composer looking for an assistant, Tovah Feldshuh as Henry’s adoring and pugnacious wife, and Lior Raz as the answer to most of Niki’s old problems, and the author of his new ones.
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