TUNER (in theatres)

How fortunate that as a young person I recognized the wealth of opera, music, film and the written word, would befriend me well into my dotage; it has paid off in spades. 2026 to this point has gifted me with two unique protagonists and a historical narrative I am bound to for life.

“Safronia” an opera composed by poet laureate Avery R. Young glistens with the trials and vicissitudes of a family relocated from the south to the north of America; blazing narratively with pain in tandem with a remarkably gorgeous score, infused with profound sadness, but electrifying energy propels one to fly from one’s seat and dance.

Meeting “Theo in Golden” (Allen Levi) an unparalleled literary protagonist; a man of splendid attributes, sensitivities who has imbibed in a life of ineffable joys and devastating emotional distress and damage.

Now slammed with “Niki White” (Leo Woodall, “The White Lotus”) a piano tuner cursed with hyperacusis: monumental, crippling sensitivity to loud noises; audiences, because of the prodigious acuity of Canadian director Daniel Roher ( “Navalny”) meet an unlikely hero, whose grasp of the piano and its vast nuances stun with sophistication only a legitimate pianist recognizes. Niki with his heightened skill, enlivened by criminal “Uri” (played with divine dexterity by Lior Raz (“Fauda”), fashions the piano tuner into an inimitable safecracker. Dustin Hoffman adds comedic certainty playing Niki’s mentor (Harry Horowitz) surrogate father, and Tovah Feldshuh (Harry’s wise wife and feminine force behind Niki’s emergence from shadowy naiveite). Love, a determining factor in Niki’s heuristic ripeness is “Ruthie” (blithely depicted by Havana Rose Liu) her debut concert earns goose bumps and panegyric praise from her fan-filled audience.

But the film rests and soars with Woodall’s performance accompanied with “perfect pitch” by Oscar winning sound designer Johnnie Burn, inviting viewers into the screeching, cacophonous, torturous realm of Niki. Woodall’s face alone, wordless, scores with the depth, breath, incomprehensible empathy of Niki’s affliction; viewers learn and rejoice with an ending that elevates all to the celestial and beyond.

FOUR &1/2 STARS!!!!

Peneflix