Customer Reviews

One Hour Photo

5 star:		(129)
4 star:		(88)
3 star:		(50)
2 star:		(25)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

Much of the attention this film receives will likely focus on Robin William's performance as Sy, a lonely, middle-aged man who works at the photo booth of a chain department store in what looks like California. Williams has turned in a melange of performances in twenty years: some gripping, and some cliche. He's good at extroverted bursts of energy; he can also soften his eyes and wrap himself around your heart. This, however, is his finest hour. He completely departs from his previous characters and creates a character that is fully realized, multi-dimensional, and psychologically on-target. It his breakthrough performance as a serious actor.

It would be a shame, however, not to notice that this is also a very well-made film. A very sad but all-too-familiar story about loneliness and social isolation unfolds at a compelling pace, with a script that resists patronizing its subject or sensationalizing it. We have no choice but to notice the use of color to distinguish worlds; the flat, washed-out landscape in which Sy is imprisoned, and the lush, brilliant hues of the family life he aches for.

As events unfold, we stick to Sy's personal tragedy and his rage rather than follow standard horror-movie cliches, making the suspense and the horror genuine and harrowing. Do not less this one pass by.

Given the backdrop of the local SavMart and the stunning performance of Robin Williams, this film is a deeply scary thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat all the way through; whether it's out of complete fear of what his character will do next or the embarrassment he faces for his actions.

This is most certainly Robin Williams scariest role to date and one in which he's least like himself as he's completely suppressed his comedic nature for the almost clinical persona of Seymour "Sy" Parish. He certainly deserves any and all accolades he earns from this film. Connie Nielsen performs admirably in this film as well.

In his feature film directing debut, Mark Romanek has written and directed a pure psychological thriller masterpiece. From the simple concept of looking at a SavMart like store and coming up with this script, he has shown an amazing talent. This is a director whose films are to be looked out for in the future.

The soundtrack for this film is also quite dead on with every sequence and adds beautifully to the suspenseful nature of the film.

The premise:

Seymour "Sy" Parish (Robin Williams) works at the local SavMart as the photo technician. He's been working there for eleven years and in a large sense he has no life other than his job. During his daily routine at work, he sees everybody's lives, or more succinctly, their more joyful moments, in the pictures they bring in to be developed. Somewhere along the line he has become thoroughly infatuated with one particular family, the Yorkins. Sy even fantasizes about being Uncle Sy in the Yorkin family.

When Sy suddenly suffers a catastrophic event in his life, he essentially flips all the way off of the rocker and what follows from there simply has to be one of the most suspenseful thrillers that this viewer has watched in quite some time.

I highly recommend this film to any and all fans of this genre; it will make an excellent addition to your DVD library and will stand up quite well to multiple viewings. {ssintrepid}

Special Features:

- Writer, Director and Actor Commentary
- "Anatomy of a Scene" Sundance Channel Featurette
- "Making of" Featurette
- "The Charlie Rose Show" Interview with Robin Williams and Mark Romanek
- Theatrical Trailer and TV Spots

Don't expect One Hour Photo to be spoon fed. This movie will force you to generate some of your own conclusions about you've witnessed.

Robin Williams gives one of his best performances to date as an appearingly mild mannered yet devious photo clerk who takes his job as a photo tech at the local "Sav-Mart' a bit too serious because it appears to be all he has.

His emotional pathology becomes progressively evident and alarming as he becomes increasingly 'over-involved' with a family that brings in their photos to his store for processing. Although he blatantly oversteps some major boundaries, he does so in such a way that the seriousness of his disturbance is not realized soon enough. Some of his bizarre behaviors lead your thoughts to very dark places while at the same time, the pity his character generates, makes you want to believe that maybe his motivations really aren't that pathological.

Because Williams character evokes such a wide range of emotion, your own feelings towards him vaccilate. He is devious yet likable even amidst his pervading creepiness. Although appearingly generally mild mannered and timid, he has his moments of assertiveness and later, 'over the edge' aggressiveness and righteous indignation.

The cinematography and visual imagery is excellent and brilliantly contrasts the drab, washed out and somewhat color-less life of William's character to that of the vivid and vibrant family he becomes "focused" on.

It's a good psychological thriller. Like a photo snapshot, there's much more to this film than what we see on the surface.

Right up front: I'm a fan of Robin Williams. I think he's a comic genius and a fine actor to boot.

With this in mind, I pretty much expected to enjoy "One-Hour Photo." I thought it could be an challenging role for Williams, and it had been a while since I really saw him stretch himself much. I didn't really know what to expect from the film as a whole, though. I was very pleasantly surprised.

"One-Hour Photo" is one of those atmospheric films that seem to happen by chance every now and again, happy accidents of mood and observation that seem almost accidentally skillful, but most likely are good by design. The director, in a DVD commentary, expresses the fact that one of the motivating themes behind the style of the film was a fascination with the massive discount store chains that have spread rapidly across America in the last couple of decades. It's a thematic element which shows through in almost every scene, most especially in the expansive, clean shots of the store interior, and mirrored in the ordered simplicity of the decoration and furnishings in Williams' character's house. By contrast, other locations seem complex, chaotic, even messy.

Another impressive element of the film is the use of color. Early on, in a bit of narration, Williams' photo clerk describes his disdain for the work of most one-hour photo labs, criticizing them for prints which are too dark or too light, or in which the color is improperly balanced. In another scene, later, Williams gets into a loud argument with a technician about a slight blue shift in the photo processing machine he uses. Williams speaks with pride of the care he takes in getting colors perfect in his prints. This immediately made me start looking for color and light cues in the film itself, and there are many to find. One of the few places where color and light seem perfect are within the store where Williams works. The store is clean, well-lit, reds are perfectly red and blues (such as on the vests store employees wear) are perfectly blue. However, when Williams steps outside the store, light becomes too yellow or too blue. The only exceptions to this are when he is in his own home, or when he is looking into the home of the family he has been stalking. In a most striking scene, Williams is sitting out in his car, looking into their house. Everything is perfectly-lit there, and colors look right. However, outside its too dark, and blues are stronger then other shades. In the final scenes of the film, as it comes to its denouement, color becomes washed out, lights too bright, as Williams' understanding of this perfect family becomes increasingly fractured. Color plays an important part in the film. Considering that it's about a man who develops photos for a living, why would it not?

Stylistically, I enjoyed the overall visual tone of "One-Hour Photo." It's atmosphere is somehow both antiseptic and creepy. The few truly shocking moments in the film are made all the more so by their contrast to the movie overall. Like a Stanley Kubrick film, One-Hour Photo uses a strong sense of order to highlight the chaos. A dream sequence near the end of the film, in which a comparison to Kubrick is even more apt, uses this in a most remarkable and truly surprising way.

It's Williams himself who's the real treat in the film, though. This is a man who has spent much of his career either making us laugh or making us feel empathy for his character. In this role, more even than in Insomnia, he abandons all of that. Somehow, the man who was so open and likable in other films becomes a closed door. While watching One-Hour Photo, I forgot very quickly that he was Robin Williams, as he allowed his usual persona to be completely subsumed by that of the character. Even his narration sounds almost completely unlike what we are used to hearing from him. Gone is the bright, animated voice of Aladdin's genie or the warm voice employed for "What Dreams May Come." He's calm and quiet and cold, until he gets a little bit excited. Then he becomes nervous and jumpy. His pathetic attempts to be a part of something he can't attain for himself make him simultaneously pitiful and creepy. He has a distance in this film that is rare for any actor, most especially Robin Williams. Though he is in almost every scene, one is left with a feeling at the end of the film that we do not know him - perhaps that we cannot know him.

The end of the film was also a pleasant surprise, in that it goes against most established Hollywood standards of moralizing and defies expectations. Without giving any specifics away, I can say that one comes away from the film wanting to make a solid moral judgment on some of the characters, but there is no way to do so. There's no easy answers, it seems to say in the end. There's no excuse here to finally pass judgment on this or that character, only more questions, most of which will never be answered. The implicit challenge to the audience to draw their own conclusions about the characters (or even more challenging, to keep an open mind about them all), is what makes "One-Hour Photo" a great film in the final analysis.

I am at best an indifferent Robin Williams fan when it comes to his movies. I admit I like some of his stuff, like "The World According to Garp," "The Dead Poets Society," and, although I will deny it if asked directly, "Toys." But far too often, the frenetic comedian's films leave me feeling slightly nauseated. When a loved one wanted to watch "One Hour Photo" with me, I inwardly scoffed. I really haven't watched anything from Williams in some time, but I figured it would be extremely rude to ignore yet again my significant other's cinematic choice for the evening. Fortunately, she finally picked something I could get into. "One Hour Photo" is definitely not your normal Robin William's fare. The comedian, who has been looking to break out of his comedy straitjacket for years, really delivers the goods with this creepy yarn about an obsessive retail employee stalking a young family. William's performance here is so good that you wonder why he hasn't tried something this daring before. Gone is the performer's spastic, eardrum shattering personality so often seen when he appears on a talk show or in a stand up concert. Instead, we see a subdued, angry Robin Williams capable of inducing nightmares.

Williams plays Seymour "Sy" Parrish, a lonely, middle-aged photo shop employee who has nothing in his life except the job. He is a one-hour photo development guy who works at one of those big chain department stores that sit on every other street corner across the country. One benefit of Sy's job is that he gets to know many of his customers on a first name basis, which for him constitutes his only interaction with other human beings. Parrish isn't married, doesn't have children or friends, and lives a rather bleak existence in a dim apartment. He doesn't have anything really except the copies of other people's pictures he clandestinely steals from the photo department. Parrish's favorite photos are from the Yorkin family: consisting of mother Nina, father Will, and son Jake. Nina and Jake have been coming into the photo lab for years to get their pictures developed, and Sy has taken quite a shine to them. Jake even refers to Parrish as "Sy, the photo guy," a moniker Seymour takes as quite a compliment. Heck, after awhile he even feels like part of the family, so much so that he covers one whole wall of his apartment with stolen pictures of the Yorkins. If Sy cannot live with his adopted family, at least he can bring them into his own house and relive the family's most precious moments. The Yorkins look like the perfect little family on paper, and it isn't too long before Sy starts to step over the line. He "accidentally" runs into Nina Yorkin at the mall where the two engage in small talk, which, although meaning little to Nina, means the world to Sy. Then Jake "accidentally" runs across Parrish one day after school, when the photo guy just happens to bring the child a gift.

Parrish's world becomes inseparable from the Yorkin's lives, to the point that he begins following them around every chance he gets. Sy has plenty of spare time on his hands because he loses his job at the photo mart after his boss fires him for stealing pictures. The loss of the job is devastating, but even more destructive to Parrish's fragile mental state is the sudden discovery of imperfection in the "perfect" Yorkin household. Nina and Will have problems, specifically over Jake and the father's inability to connect with his son. One problem leads to many more when Will Yorkin decides to take a dangerous step outside of his marriage and Sy Parrish is there to teach the sort of lesson no one could ever forget. The conclusion is a shocker because it takes a different approach from the usual stalker/obsessive person film.

I liked "One Hour Photo." Obviously, William's take on a guy who snaps psychologically is radically different from many of his other film roles. Sy Parrish is creepy and disconnected, and Williams successfully reveals to us the inner turmoil felt by this individual. Just as neat was the chain store where Sy worked. The place is so sterile, bright, and obsessively organized that I loved looking at the place whenever they showed it. Parrish's apartment with the hundreds of pictures on the wall gives you the chills when you see it, especially later when Sy goes on his rampage and the police find the pictures with Will Yorkin's face scratched out on every single snapshot. The best scene in the film was when we see Sy snooping around the Yorkin house and the family suddenly arrives home just in time to see...well, it's best that you watch the movie yourself to discover how this scene plays out. "One Hour Photo" has some unforgettable moments.

The few problems with the movie have little to do with the DVD release, which boasts a Charlie Rose interview with Williams, some behind the scenes stuff, and an interesting menu screen. After watching the "Anatomy of a Scene" featurette on the disc, I realized that some of the messages the makers of "One Hour Photo" attempted to pass on to the viewer didn't exactly work. The scene in question involved Sy's first meeting with Will Yorkin in the department store. The director goes on and on about how the store represents a type of heaven to Parrish and how he proves his power over Yorkin by summoning help on the store intercom. I must have missed that when I watched the movie and I am not sure many viewers perceived that scene, or others, as the producers intended. Despite that, this movie is a must see for Robin Williams fans and a should see for all others.

Robin Williams gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the lonely, somewhat creepy, but wholly sympathetic Sy Parrish in this haunting, compelling directorial debut by Mark Romanek. Some have called this a scary movie, but One Hour Photo works on emotional levels much deeper than fear and disquiet. This is an intellectual thriller that at times borders on a work of art, a carefully constructed exploration of the depths to which loneliness and bland ordinariness can drive a man. Everyone reacts to this movie differently; by design, a sense of moral ambiguity pervades the story and its presentation. Many may see Sy Parrish as a bad guy (though certainly not a stereotypical one); those lucky enough to never know the hopelessness and loneliness this man endures or to experience the devastation of seeing your whole world pulled out from under your feet may look down their noses at him with denigration, not truly understanding his afflictions. Most of us, though, know what utter loneliness feels like to some degree, and I can't help but believe that most viewers will feel a connection to Sy Parrish that differs markedly from what they might anticipate going in. If you ask me, there is a bad guy in this film, but it is not Sy Parrish.

Sy Parrish's job means everything to him; as a photo developer at a large retail store, he develops customers' pictures with great care and professionalism. Outside of his photo development domain, he is bland and invisible, a man truly alone. His life could not be more different from the lives he sees day by day in the pictures he develops - in the pictures of happy families, he sees everything he wants but cannot have. Thus, it almost seems natural that he would begin to fantasize about being a part of such a life, to have a family of his own. His favorite family is the Yorkins, a seemingly perfect young couple with one son. Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) is one of Sy's best customers; she's always bringing in pictures to be developed. Having watched the Yorkin family evolve over a number of years, Sy has adopted them as his own, making his own copies of all their pictures. He knows Nina, her husband Will (Michael Vartan), and son Jake (Dylan Smith) intimately through their photos; he knows where they live, what their house is like, and all sorts of additional personal details about them. In his own mind, he is Uncle Sy to Jake, and he tries to insinuate himself into the Yorkins' lives at just the time his own real life is beginning to fragment. His job is no longer secure, and it is during this troubled time that he discovers that the Yorkins are not the ideal family after all. That discovery is just more than he can take.

This is not the kind of role you associate with Robin Williams, but there can be no doubt that this man is among the most accomplished of actors. All of the natural energy Williams suppresses in his transformation to the externally calm, quiet, rather forgettable Sy Parrish lends his performance a power that few other actors could bring to such a role. Writer and director Mark Romanek gave Williams a completely different look, and the set design and cinematography reinforces that directorial vision to lend the movie a sense of hyperreality that proves as unsettling as Sy's descent into mental disconnection. The acting is superb all the way around, but Williams clearly steals the show with one of the most impressive performances I've seen in a long time.

Topped off by a writer/director/actor commentary, a really well-made behind-the-scenes featurette, an "Anatomy of a Scene" Sundance Channel Featurette, and an extensive interview with Robin Williams and Mark Romanek on The Charlie Rose Show, One Hour Photo easily qualifies as a must-own DVD.

I had expected One Hour Photo to be yet another variation on the overused Hand That Rocks the Cradle/Fatal Attraction stalker genre, and I was glad to be proven wrong. Rather than a film about a crazed, murderous stalker, Director Mark Romanek delivers a touching portrait of a lonely man looking for a place to fit in.

Robin Williams is excellent as Sy "The Photo Guy" Parrish, who uses his job in the photo departmant of SavMart to accumulate pictures of the family he so desperately wishes to be a part of. When he discovers clues that all might not be sweetness and light with his fantasy family, Sy decides to take steps to correct things.

I really didn't feel too much for the Yorkin family- Apart from the sympathetic young son, the parents aren't the nicest of people, and the secret they're hiding made me like them even less. (I did understand how Sy could be drawn to the lovely Mrs. Yorkin, played by the luminous Connie Nielson.) The ending is vastly different from what I was expecting, and that's always a plus.

See it for Robin Williams' strong performance, which is sure to be a contender at Oscar time.

Firstly, let me start this review by saying this film is certainly not for everyone. You either get it, or you don't...it's as simple as that.

Robin Williams gives a stunning performance in this psychological thriller that is sure to at the very least, get him an Oscar nomination nod. Williams plays "Sy the Photo Guy" at a discount store Sav-Mart which, for all of us in America is all too familiar. Sy takes absolute care and pride in his work, to the point of obsession (the altercation with the photo processing technician gives you your first peak at just how seriously Sy takes his work). Sy becomes obsessed over one family in particular and dreams of becoming part of the family as "Unlce Sy". Seemingly harmless on the surface, you find that as the film progresses Sy may not be as harmless as one would think.

In the opening sequence, Sy narrates a tale of his customers from the new parent with the endless rolls of film, to the amatuer pornographer, which at this point you start to think, "should I be taking all of my film to the same place to be developed?"

Mark Romanek's theatrical debut as a director is stunnng. The camera work is exceptional, from the enormous glaring halogen staleness of the Sav-Mart, to the drab environment in which Sy lives in at home, to the warm inviting coloration of the family to which he has become, in his own mind, an important figure in. The set design, costumes and overall look and feel of this film is realistic, and yet has moments where the glaring sterility of everyday life for a middle aged single male practically smacks you in the face.

Some people may find the film a tad slow, but every single frame of this is neccessary in order to fully develop the feeling, mood and the characters themselves.

In particular, the ending is something that you absoluetly do not expect, but give yourself a couple of moments to think and it will become very clear as to what the motivation of the characters, screenwriter and director was.

I admit this film is not for everyone, but if you find that you are searching for a film with a bit more depth and are willing to think your way through this, it is well worth the effort and money.

Those of us that live in the suburbs know that, a few miles away, we will find one or more of those huge chain retail outlets, a place we can go to shop for everything we need. While we're there, we might drop off a roll or two of film to be processed. Unknowingly, perhaps thinking the whole process is done via computer, we don't realize that the technician developing the prints might actually be looking those prints over, an invisible eye to our private moments. That's the premise of Mark Romanek's chilling "One Hour Photo."

Robin Williams is Sy Parrish, a photo technician for one of those large nameless stores. He's polite, friendly, and knows many of his customers by name. Over the years he's become particularly fond of the Yorkin family: Will (played by Michael vartan), the handsome father and husband; Nina (Connie Nielson), the beautiful mother and wife, who over the years has come to know Sy; and son Jake (Dylan Smith), who also likes Sy, and is sad in his belief that Sy is lonely and has no friends.

We've all seen the manic Robin in many of his comedies, improvising like crazy, not really playing a character, just another version of himself. In "One Hour Photo," Williams takes that manic energy and stuffs it inside, and he becomes Sy the Photo Guy, no longer Robin Williams. It's a chilling performance. Sy is indeed friendless. Lonely and depressed, he eats his meals alone and returns home to his tiny, empty apartment.

Sy has done some decorating: one wall is covered with photos of the Yorkins. Over the years, Sy has made a set of prints for himself every time the Yorkins bring something in to be developed. And over the years he's become fixated on what he thinks, via the photographs, is a perfect family. He imagines himself as a part of the family, "Uncle Sy," and his fixation is now turning to obsession.

"One Hour Photo" is writer/director Mark Romanek's first film. Like many directors, his work over the years has primarily been in music video. He also directed Johnny Cash's heartbreaking video of "Hurt," which conveyed an overwhelming sense of heartbreak and dispair.

Romanek is some kind of genius for getting the performance out of Williams that he did. It's an amazing transformation.

The last third of the movie has Sy's world tumbling down around him: he loses his job and has discovered a piece of information on his "adopted" family that finally drives him over the edge into near madness.

The movie ends with many questions unanswered. There is no nice and tidy Hollywood ending where all problems are resolved. We, the audience, must now try to make sense of what has happened. It's a film that will stay with you long after the end credits roll.

DVD highlights:
-- Commentary track with Robin Williams and Mark Romanek. Apparently this is the first time ever that Williams has recorded a commentary track for one of his films. The two have a good rapport, and while the commentary lags in places, we do get a glimpse into the "real" Robin Williams. His commentary is, for the most part, subdued and intelligent, with the occasional humorous bit thrown in.

-- Standard "Making Of" documentaries, theatrical and television trailers, as well as a longer interview taken from the Charlie Rose show.

Note to parents: Your kids might be big Robin Williams fans, but this is NOT a movie for children.

People at indie film company Killer Films did it again. After making impressive films like "Boys Don't Cry" and "Hedwig and Angry Inch" (or not so impressive "Office Killer"), they produced another film with a serious theme. But don't worry; despite its subject matter, "One Hour Photo" is not as schocking as "Taxi Driver." No strange haircut, no handguns in the sleeve, but just Sy, loneliest guy in the world.

Robim Willimas, after 3 years' absence, throws away any good-guy image he gathered in the 90s, and becomes Sy Parrish, one hour photo techinician working at a counter in a huge shopping center. He works earnestly, takes his job seriously, and, most of all, is utterly lonely. His only (day)dream is to be 'Uncle Sy' of his customer and picture perfect family Mr. and Mrs. Yorkin (read 'Your Kin'), whose life Sy hopelessly longs for. But soon we learn that Sy can no longer handle his fantasy, and we are going to see his illusion run amok, making him stalk around the family. And everything rushes to the disaster when Uncle Sy knows something he should not know about the family.

The film owns its enormous power to Robin Williams's creepy performance as Sy, who gradually loses the control of himself. Though you may feel he looks (or sounds) like Patch Adams at first, you soon forget that sense, thanks to his strong acting. By accepting the role of this lonely man, he once again after the good turn in "Insomnia" shows his will to extend his faculty as an actor, and he shows it well. In fact, he has already shown another aspect of acting in his cameo role of terrorist in "The Secret Agent" (Joseph Conrad's film version), but never fully achieved the result. But now he did it.

But "One Hour Photo" is helped by other factors; supporting actors Michael Vartan (Drew's teacher in "Never Been Kissed") and Connie Nielsen ("Gladiator") are both good, but the film's strength, in my opinion, comes from its production designs, music, and photography. They all contribute to creating the cold, detached atomosphere of the film, and their effort is effectively shown in the manufactured feeling of the shopping place, with symmetrical shots of the unnnaturally clean and white interiors. That comes as no surprise when you know that production designer Tom Foden's previous work was Jennifer Lopez's thriller "The Cell" and photographer Jeff Cronenweth worked for "Fight Club" (by the way, his father Jordan Cronenweth may be much more famous for his "Blade Runner").

"One Hour Photo" has some minor flaws -- dream sequence that looks out of tune, and flashback structure of narrative, for instance -- but the film is fascinating as a character study of Sy, this very lonely guy.