|
Advertisement |
Overall Rating
 Awesome: 53.73%
Worth A Look: 17.91%
Average: 16.42%
Pretty Bad: 10.45%
Total Crap: 1.49%
9 reviews, 80 user ratings
|
|
| One Hour Photo |
by MP Bartley
"The greatest advert for an Insta-matic camera ever!"
|
We've all known them as children. Friends of our parents or elderly relatives who take just a slightly too keen interest in our activities. They seem friendly enough but with hindsight in later years seem a little creepy. The vast majority are undoubtedly harmless enough, but after watching Robin Williams in this you may just think again...Williams plays Sy Parrish, the head of photo development at the local supermarket. He's a quiet, dedicated worker with no real life or family of his own who loves his job, in particular the photos that come from the Yorkin family. As he tells us in voiceover the Yorkins - Nina (Connie Nielsen), Will (Michael Vartan) and young Jake (Dylan Smith) - are like everybody else who takes photos: they only take photos of the happy times.
However, Sy more than likes the Yorkin family; he's obsessed by them. Printing off an extra set of photos each time for himself, he passes them off as his own family and imagines himself fitting into the family unit seamlessly (he tells Nina he thinks of himself as Uncle Sy). It's all harmless, if a little weird, until Sy first suffers a major setback in his own life and then finds cracks appearing in the Yorkins. Which is when his obsession really begins to spill out and alarm bells ring for the audience.
Williams is amazing. Love it or hate it, the one aspect about 'One Hour Photo' that everyone will agree on is that this is one of Williams finest performances, if not his best yet. He slowly drip feeds in more and more insights into Sy, so we alternately feel pity, revulsion and fear. Often at the same time or in the same scene. In one scene Sy sits by himself in a cafe, looking longingly through the latest batch of Yorkin photos. Your heart goes out for such a pitifully lonely man. But then you have him turning up at Jakes football training unannounced to ingratiate himself with a young boy, and your opinion starts to change.
It's to Williams immense credit that he never firmly divides opinion. Even when Sy is at his worst behaviour he's never wholly contemptible and you just can't condemn him outright. Yes Sy far oversteps the mark, but always retains a semblance of humanity and desperation that distinguishes him from the usual run-of-the-mill stalkers. It'll be criminal if he doesn't find himself on the Oscar shortlist next year. It's a great sign when you forget who you're actually watching after 10 minutes, and just watch the character instead,
The rest of the cast are overshadowed by Williams, but then the Yorkins are overshadowed by Sy. Their performances are all fine, particularly Smith who sums up the sensitive youngster who instinctivley trusts strangers.
But Williams also has a great script to work from. Writer/director Mark Romanek should also take some credit for keeping Sy plausible and not over the top. Stylistically, the film is equally as measured as Williams performance. Sy's life at work and home is shown in harsh, sterile lights highlighting the fact that there's nothing in Sy's life to live for. Even his costumes, plain blues and beiges, are dull and straight to the point of obsession. He goes home and he drinks plain old water in his plain old flat. It's a painfully plausible way of living for a lot of people. Romanek's direction is cleverly low-key keeping the feeling that this nightmare is happening in a very real suburban setting. At times he shows astounding flair however, such as when his camera suddenly zooms into the one William's is holding.
If there's one criticism it's that the story is too straightforward, and there's no real subtext. It feels at times that Romanek is being stretched for material and so inserts a couple of fantasy sequences to flesh out the running time. However as these are two of the best and most haunting sequences in the film you can't really complain. Particularly when Romanek fills the running time with a steadily mounting feeling of unease. The scene where we first realise the size of Sy's obsession is a horribly un-nerving moment. And the final image is one that will send you home with an uncomfortable feeling that you just won't shake for days. I'm still getting shivers from it now.'One-Hour Photo' is ultimately a one-note affair, but what a note. William's tremendous performance, and Romanek's assured but subtle direction ensures a slow-burning creep-out that we haven't seen the like of for years. It'll make you think twice about who gets to see your photos developed.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5742&reviewer=293
originally posted: 10/10/02 00:25:16
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
 |
USA
21-Aug-2002 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
30-Jan-2003
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
