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Poster (c) Fox Searchlight
One Hour Photo has what many critics hailed as Robin Williams’s greatest acting job. I don’t think so. Although he’s excellent in his role as Sy the Photo Guy, he still excels at doing comedy in movies like Mrs. Doubtfire. Photo is music video director Mark Romanek’s first movie was writer-director, and it’s very distinctive that it is. It’s hard to explain, it just looks like a rookie operation.
Williams plays Sy, a photo clerk at SavMart, a Target type place. He loves his job very much, and his customers more so. His favorite family includes the Yorkins, Nina (Connie Nielsen), Will (Michael Vartan) and Jake (Dylan Smith), who Sy thinks is a perfect family. He makes extra copies of their photos for himself, and in his apartment he has a wall filled with their cherished memories. However, Nina and Will are on shaky ground, presumably about money, but we can’t really tell. When Sy realizes this, and something else that’s quite obvious, he doesn’t like how he’s been misled. And he gets angry. This shy soul doesn’t like that, and he’s going to do something about it.
The greatest pro and the greatest con both involve Romanek’s script. Romanek has created almost a fantasy world, where it seems that everything is going right. The story is so original it seems like it could have been a true story. The character of Sy rings so true, it shows that we all know a Sy somewhere in our lives, yet we don’t take the time to notice him. However, the supporting characters were some of the most uninteresting I have seen in a movie this year. I didn’t care about the Yorkin family one bit. Not only that, but there was no development of the Yorkins. What did Will do that we were supposed to know? We didn’t know. What about anything about Nina or Jake? I have no idea. I wanted less of the Yorkins and more of Sy.
A reason it is apparent that Romanek is a auteur director is that he expects all scenes that could be thrilling to be thrilling. They could have been made tense but instead Romanek just assumes that we think it is. Although that scene, bound to be famous soon, in the hotel room at the end was, the rest of the movie wasn’t. Williams showed yet again how versatile he is; he can star in comedy or drama with perfect ease. He was superb. However, all of the Yorkin family came off dull and flat. Gary Cole, as the one-note boss, was way better than people should be in supporting roles like that. Overall, One Hour Photo is an interesting drama with great lead acting.
Rated R for sexual content and language.
Review Date: September 19, 2003