A successful “house tuner” in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people’s homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can’t solve.
Most of us hear that ringing sound in our ear from time to time, the source of the insistent noise impossible to locate. It’s almost as if we fall out of tune with the world’s wavelength for a little while. The protagonist of Michael Tyburski’s drama “The Sound of Silence” makes a living out of fine-tuning people’s homes, adjusting those wavelengths. Due to its extremely languid pace and lack of fleshed-out characters, the ambitiously minimalist film may make it difficult for the viewer to adjust to its wavelength.
Peter (Peter Sarsgaard) is said “house tuner,” who cherishes silence above all — yet he lives in New York, arguably the loudest city in the world. He believes that the metropolitan is split into specific areas, each corresponding with a certain resonance — a symphony of imperceptible sounds that subliminally guide us if you will. Peter believes his theory is a physical law, just like gravity. He’s almost done working on his thesis, when Ellen (Rashida Jones), one of his clients, challenges his notions, claiming that there’s a limit to a rational human’s susceptibility to external forces.
Peter also struggles to locate the aural source of Ellen’s anxiety, which stumps him. He even accompanies her to work, only to determine that he himself can’t handle the cacophony of noise. Could it be that her issues have nothing to do with the vibrations emitted by her toaster? Could they indeed stem from within? When Harold (Bruce Altman), a corporate magnate, sets his eyes on getting a hold of and marketing Peter’s theory, he attempts to validate it and beat him to the punch.
Tyburski’s 85-minute film is artful, and noble in its intentions, yet its dryness prevents it from achieving catharsis. The filmmaker determinedly scales back on any sort of embellishments. In one shot, Peter walks in front of the New York City landscape, and I couldn’t help but wish there was a little visual touch there: the city seen through his eyes, all notes and symphonies. Yet the tone is as stripped-down, distant and cold as the protagonists.
That’s not to say that the actors don’t excel. In a role tailor-made for him, Sarsgaard guides our attention with a convincingly dazed-out performance, despite the fact that his background — what led him to becoming a borderline-obsessive outcast — is never revealed, nor is he allowed to reveal it. Rashida Jones provides an inkling of warmth as the social worker attempting to fine-tune her life, but again, we’re only provided with glimpses, thinly-drawn sketches that she fills in with the mere gravitas of her presence.
The film is as muted as its hero’s world. I could see it as a lyrical, concise short. Stretched out to over an hour, it begins to verge on somnambulant. The idea that there are forces beyond our understanding — or perception — that may affect us on a minute basis is intriguing, and Tyburski should be commended for sticking to his guns. I just wish they fired louder shots.
In Theaters Friday, September 13th
