It sounds like the kind of thing middle school nightmares are made of: being asked to play piano in front of an expectant audience with little practice. But this was Havana Rose Liu’s reality for her latest film, Tuner .

The movie — the narrative debut from Oscar-winning documentarian Daniel Roher ( Navalny ) — follows an apprentice piano tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall), with an auditory condition that proves useful as he tries to ease the financial burdens of his mentor (Dustin Hoffman) by moonlighting as a safecracker. For her part, Liu is Ruthie, a driven music composition graduate student who starts a relationship with Niki.

It sounds like the kind of thing middle school nightmares are made of: being asked to play piano in front of an expectant audience with little practice. But this w

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