One Hour Photo a picture-perfect chiller
Film features Robin Williams as an infatuated photo guy
REVIEW
ONE HOUR PHOTO
Starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan
Written and directed by Mark Romanek
Opens Friday, September 6
Globe Cinema
What is the main reason writer-director Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo is the creepiest, most unsettling film so far this year?
Not Robin Williams, although Mork is fast becoming the master of playing nutbars. Williams is even more effective here than he was as the heartless killer in Insomnia. Probably because, playing SavMart department store’s friendly photo clerk, Sy Parrish, he really doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. The only curses he knows are reserved for the lazy Agfa serviceman, and he greets everyone else with an overdose of pleasantries. See, Sy cares about people. But that’s his problem. He cares too much.
The major reason One Hour Photo so effectively makes the skin crawl isn’t Romanek’s meticulous attention to detail – like Kubrick, this former music video ace loves colour and uses it aggressively – but what makes it truly terrifying is its plausibility.
Creating a portrait of professional psychosis, Romanek (who also wrote the script) chooses a low-key yet ultimately suitable profession for his lead character. And Williams completely disappears into his role as "Sy the Photo Guy," a repressed, bespectacled, polyester-clad loner who relishes his job so much that his eight-hour shift under the bright lights of the bustling SavMart is like heaven. But when he leaves the tranquility of his photo department perch and retreats to his cheesebox apartment, Sy enters an empty world. A cold, dark place. Hell.
Sy’s favourite escape is his obsession with the Yorkins, longtime customers who bring their pictures in for processing. By nosing in on their Kodak moments, he’s seen the marriage of Nina and Will (Connie Nielsen of Gladiator and Michael Vartan of TV’s Alias), witnessed the birth of their son Jake (Dylan Smith) and experienced every celebration, every vacation, virtually every happy moment they've documented for almost a decade. To Sy, the Yorkins appear to be the perfect family, and his fascination sparks unusual daydreams that put him smack dab in the middle of their idyllic life. (In one particularly twisted scene, Romanek brings a holiday photo to life, as Sy sits with the family by the fire, grinning like an idiot while holding up his gift, a butt-ugly sweater.)
But then, photos begin to surface that show the Yorkins’ home isn’t exactly a happy one. And poor Sy, having already been pushed around by SavMart’s pompous manager (Gary Cole, who played a similar weenie in Office Space), resorts to extreme measures to try and make everything right again.
In many ways, One Hour Photo owes more to Scorsese than to Kubrick. While the white, ultra-sanitary aisles of SavMart echo images in 2001 (and also provide a most disturbing background for Sy’s blood-gushing nightmare), the main character’s plight is comparable to that of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, or even Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy. Like Parrish, those guys had good intentions, but also severe mental roadblocks when it came to quality decision-making.
It’s as easy to sympathize with Sy as it is to be frightened by him – and those emotions can all be credited to Williams's poignant performance. Let’s hope that his penchant for sentimental slop like Patch Adams is behind him because no one else can sport such a nondescript look, while bringing an undercurrent of rage or emotional torture to the screen.
There’s so much to One Hour Photo, so much you can dissect and discuss afterwards, one viewing might not do it. How does the saying go, "a picture is worth a thousand words"? If that’s true, One Hour Photo could talk for days. |
