Mark Kermode

It was interesting that Leo Woodall did find it difficult to talk about the movie, but because there is none of that hesitancy in his performance, in his performance, he completely seems to embody the character.

He's absolutely convincing as a piano tuner and a safe cracker.

I mean,

I wasn't completely convinced by him as a piano player, but that's okay because that's a lesser part of the plot.

No, yes, she really genuinely seems to be doing that, doesn't she?

So it was, I think the fact is that

The reason that it works is that in that 70s way, it's really a character drama that's just posing as a crime thriller.

It's funny that that clip we played was pretty incidental.

It was just Dustin Hoffman saying, oh, yeah, this is my thing.

Goodbye, my nephew, blah, blah, blah.

And what's interesting is that you buy into the characters.

I'm sure that Dustin Hoffman absolutely loves doing that sort of stuff.

It also helps that you have...

sound designer Johnny Byrne, and you talked about this before.

Johnny Byrne's credits include Zone of Interest, and he's worked with Yorgos Lanthimos.

He's a genius.

And like Darius Marder's Sound of Metal, which had a different sound designer, but again was very much about the way in which the world is evoked through the sound design,

This creates an audio world that you live in because the way the sound design works is that it takes you with inside the head of the central character.

We really do hear the world through Nikki's ears.

I do think the third act descends somewhat into contrivance and melodrama, but there is enough about the characters that rings true that means that even when you get the overpowering clanking gears of the plot, I don't know whether you agree with me about this, but I think in the third act,