DON'T THINK OF One Hour Photo as a movie. Think of it as 141,120 separate pictures — that's 98 minutes worth of film reeling at 24 frames per second — lined up for us to analyze, deconstruct and decipher. The results: Robin Williams is one scary son of a bitch.
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One Hour Photo
Starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan and Eriq la Salle. Directed by Mark Romanek. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Rated R for language, nudity and sexual content. Now showing. |
(out of four)Williams is darker. As Photo's Sy Parrish, he epitomizes the bad Wal-Mart service we've come to loath. Here though, he doesn't work at Wal-Mart, but rather SavMart, a sterile knock-off that gives the film a science fiction edge.
Sy works as a film processor in the photo department, where his range of customers is all encompassing. He has the amateur pornographer, the feline obsessive, the insurance adjuster and the typical family, the Yorkins. Their cameras' victims — nude pinups, photo-friendly cats, smashed-up cars and birthday parties, respectively — are all witnessed by Sy as he develops their film and color corrects each individual print.
On a distant level, "Sy, the Photo Guy," as one character calls him, experiences these events with his customers, especially the Yorkins, a young family with a trendy house and even trendier furniture.
Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) is a beautiful housewife with an SUV. Her husband Will Yorkin (Michael Vartan) is a handsome business owner. Nine-year-old Jake is their cute kid and a great soccer player. All this Sy sees in their pictures, and all this Sy lusts after. In his mind, the trio represents the perfect family, which is why he goes off the deep end when Will betrays the family's trust.
We're way ahead of the story though. We know what Sy's capable of and we know why he's so disturbed. He's a lonely man with no friends, no family and no ambitions. When the Yorkins ask for double prints, he makes them in triplicate so he can take the extra set for himself.
The movie, or as it should be called, the picture, starts with the ending: Sy's questioning by a cop (ER's Eriq la Salle) in a bleached-out interrogation room. But his crimes, or even his motives, are left untouched, no doubt for us to touch upon. By the time the ending comes full circle again, before the final credits, it's resolved enough to know what happens, but ambiguous enough to crave more resolution.
So that's where One Hour Photo goes wrong: In establishing Sy as a psycho, they give him the Psycho treatment — that is, director Mark Romanek doesn't mind doing what Alfred Hitchcock regretted for years, which was to end with an explanation and silent picture of a condemned man.
It's as if One Hour Photo stopped with three or four exposures left on its roll.
All other aspects of One Hour Photo are marvelous, especially the cinematographer's lush color palette, complete with odd pastel hues and inescapable whiteness.
Story wise, what could have been Unlawful Entry - a man lusts for companionship, so he uses his authority as a cop to get another man's wife - has instead turned out to be something much more unique and daring. The narrative supplied by Williams could have become tedious and too revealing, but it complements the villain's urges and the bystanders' lack of appreciation for what the photo hut guy is capable of doing.
And Williams - what is there to say? The guy is truly frightening on film. Part Ansel Adams and part HAL 9000 with a trickle of Hannibal Lecter flowing through, Williams' Sy is the real deal when it comes to just being strange on film.
If there are any truths with One Hour Photo it's this: Disney will never hire Robin Williams again.
And that's good.
Reach the reporter at michael.clawson@asu.edu.
