Starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Dylan Smith, Gary Cole,
Eriq La Salle, Erin Daniels.
Written and Directed by Mark Romanek.
Nina and Will Yorkin (Nielsen and Vartan) live the picture-perfect life, with a beautiful
house, expensive things and a sensitive son Jakob (Smith). And they like to take pictures.
They take their photos to the SavMart where Sy Parrish (Williams) develops theirs
and all his customers pictures with care and attention to detail. But he has taken a
special interest in the Yorkins, and each time he develops a set for them, he develops
an extra set for himself, which he has neatly lined up on his living room wall. Sy
longs for a family and likes to think of himself as their Uncle Sy.
Soon his boss Bill Owens (Cole) discovers many more photos are being made than are being
sold to customers, and he fires Sy. To Sy, developing photos is not just a job, and
he does not take his firing well. He decides to right a few wrongs, things he's
discovered about the Yorkins and other people while developing their pictures.
One Hour Photo is about all those anonymous, innocuous single people out there who
work at the store you shop at or the restaurant you eat at. It is not as much a cautionary
tale about watching out what photos one brings to the photo lab and whether the clerk
is stealing the juicy ones for himself, but about in our hurried life we sometimes
don't notice who is serving our food or providing us routine services. Sy goes home
to a neat and sparsely furnished apartment, where he spends his evenings watching TV
after eating out at a restaurant alone, with virtually nobody noticing his presence.
Nobody values his life or contribution. Sy takes his job very seriously, but when he
tells his boss about "his" customers, his boss informs him they aren't his - they're
just coming to SavMart to save money and chastises him for taking things so intensely.
Robin Williams has recently concentrated on serious dramatic roles, such as Insomnia,
and here he is less creepy than a genuinely sad man in need of love from somebody, anybody.
His unhappiness and neediness for belonging are palpable, to the point where at the
film's climax I found myself sympathizing with him as he did things to people he shouldn't
have done. The supporting cast is solid, especially Dylan Smith as the young boy who
first notices Sy's "sadness", and Gary Cole as the boss whose view of Sy is that of
just another person to fire in the revolving door that is Wal ... excuse me, SavMart.
The film begins slowly and deliberately, and the pace moves in concert with the drudgery
of Sy's life, and it builds the tension and pace nicely as it moves to its climax. One
flaw occurs at the film's end. We learn the motivation behind Sy's behaviour, and part
of the explanation is pat and too obvious.
The trailer for One Hour Photo talks about it doing for photo developing what
Psycho did for showers. Well not quite. But it is a well-made character study
that nicely illustrates characters that movies rarely deal with.
 
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