Tuner is the movie everyone will be talking about in six months

Some movies are pre-ordained “very big deals”. Others slip in through the backdoor, unveiled at film festivals with little advance buzz but incredible post-screening word-of-mouth. That, your movie buff friend insists, will be huge. Which brings us neatly to Tuner, a crime caper that spread like wildfire in Toronto, Zurich and London last year, and which is finally coming to cinemas this May.

Directed by Daniel Roher and starring Leo Woodall – he of One Day, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and the, ahem, nephew and uncle saga of The White Lotus season two – Tuner revolves around a New Yorker with an unusual condition that makes him incredibly sensitive to loud noises. This has led him to his current gig tuning pianos, which feels very small fry until an encounter with a gang of crooks sets him on a new path: cracking safes.

Reviews have been incredibly effusive so far. “Gorgeously executed,” went The Wrap, while Variety dubbed it “a laid-back romcom crossed with a low-key crime thriller.” They added: “Tuner feels like the discovery of the Telluride Film Festival. Roher’s winsome debut feels more like a throwback to well-written character-driven Nineties dramas like Good Will Hunting and Shine.”

The movie marks a comeback of sorts for Dustin Hoffman, playing a long-in-the-tooth piano tuner, but special critical mention has repeatedly been made to Woodall and Hoffman’s co-star Havana Rose Liu, who’s bounced around feature films over the last few years – she played Ayo Edebiri’s cheerleader love interest in the comedy Bottoms. As Woodall’s love interest – a piano virtuoso – she reportedly gives a performance in Tuner that screams “big, big new movie star”.

“Liu’s [performance] is empowered yet never caricaturish,” wrote Caleb Hammond in Indiewire. “Closeups of her face in various states of puzzlement, affection, or frustration dazzle, and remove any doubt: Liu is a star.”

Tuner, which premiered to unsuspecting audiences at last year’s BFI London Film Festival in the “surprise film” slot, will be released in UK and Ireland cinemas on 29 May.