I’ll be honest — Tuner wasn’t on my must-see list. It looked interesting enough, but nothing was pulling me to the theater. That changed the moment I watched the trailer and realized the main character has hyperacusis.
For those who don’t know, hyperacusis is a rare disorder that makes normal, everyday sounds feel painfully loud — and I have sensitive hearing myself. Not the same condition as Niki, the film’s lead, but close enough that when I saw him in that trailer — wearing earplugs and noise-canceling headphones just to get through a regular day — I felt something I don’t feel very often watching movies or TV.
I felt seen.
That’s not a small thing. That’s actually everything.
The film’s sound designer puts you directly inside Niki’s experience, hearing what he hears at both muffled and deafening extremes — creating a distinct, immersive aural experience. When I watched that in the preview — the way loud noise isn’t just inconvenient for him, it’s painful, it’s disorienting, it can even cause seizures — I didn’t just understand it intellectually. I felt it in my body. Because I know that version of the world, even in a smaller way.
That’s what representation actually does. It’s not a buzzword. It’s the moment you stop being an outsider to a story and suddenly you’re in it.
We talk a lot about representation in terms of race, gender, and sexuality — and those conversations are vital and necessary. But disability representation, and specifically the representation of conditions that are invisible, rare, or misunderstood, is still so far behind where it needs to be. Hyperacusis doesn’t have a visible marker. You can’t tell by looking at someone that a crowded restaurant, a loud movie, or a busy street is a completely different and overwhelming sensory experience for them than it is for everyone else around them.
But a movie can show you that. A movie can make you hear it.
Tuner is part rom-com, part crime thriller, and a non-stop ride — but what elevates it is that it doesn’t just feature a character with a rare hearing condition as a gimmick. It sheds light on what that experience actually feels like. And for people who live with something similar — or love someone who does — that is priceless.
I say this as someone who works in the industry: we have to do better at putting these stories on screen. Not because it checks a box. Because somewhere out there is a person who has never once seen their reality reflected back at them in a movie theater or on a TV screen. And the day they finally do — the day a trailer stops them mid-scroll and makes them think that’s me — that changes something in them.
It changed something in me.
Tuner opens in limited theaters May 22 and expands May 29. I’ll be there.
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