ONE HOUR PHOTO Rated R - Running Time: 1:38 - Released 8/21/02
Robin Williams has certainly done his best to be considered a
versatile actor. In addition to all his quirky/crazy characters
dating back to Mork, his resumé contains no shortage of
"serious" roles, including one, in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, that won
him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Williams's latest couple of
roles have had him dabbling in the "psychotic villain"
area, and although his parts in Insomnia
and Death To Smoochy,
both released earlier this year, were at least adequate, I'm afraid
this one is just a little too ridiculous. Of course, the fact
that he's dealing with such a weak script doesn't help. Written
and directed by novice Mark Romanek, One Hour Photo veers
back and forth between pointless and preposterous, with a pace
so slow it's like watching film develop. Williams's inability
to create a plausible psycho stalker is understandable given the
material; what's really hard to believe is his ability to keep
from cracking up laughing while delivering his lines. Moreover,
the supporting characters are as two-dimensional as the numerous
photos of them featured in the film, and actors Connie Nielsen
(Gladiator) and Michael Vartan
are powerless to make them any more interesting.
Williams plays Sy Parrish, the senior technician at the one-hour
photo developing department of a huge, Wal-Mart-like superstore
(called SavMart in the movie). While he outwardly seems like a
nice, if vaguely pathetic, guy and expounds passionately on the
fine art of film processing, we soon learn that he's got a disturbing
side. Lacking any family or relationships of his own, he has become
enamored with one young family who regularly bring their film
to his workplace. Although he's never met Will Yorkin (Vartan),
who runs his own business and is consequently too busy to spend
much time at home, he is on a first-name basis with Will's wife
Nina (Nielsen) and their 9-year-old son Jake (Dylan Smith). Having
seen their family pictures ever since Will and Nina were married
(including pictures of Jake dating back to his birth), he feels
he knows the Yorkins, and secretly wishes he were a family member.
It's mildly disturbing that he does things like visiting their
house while they're away (he knows their address from the film
packages), or going to watch Jake's soccer practices in lieu of
his real father, but you'll really freak when you see the inside
of his apartment. Sy's photo-eavesdropping pushes him over the
edge, however, at the concurrence of two events which I will not
divulge (in case anyone really wants to go to this flick). Suffice
to say, Sy's preoccupation with the Yorkins, coupled with a dark
childhood secret, causes him to snap—and I don't just mean
pictures.
The fact that this movie is incredibly slow is accentuated
by the fact that its plot is pointless. A full half hour passes
before anything remotely interesting happens, and when things
start happening, they're only remotely interesting. There are
a few creepy scenes, like one particularly disturbing image during
a dream, and a tense if implausible psycho climax, but these moments
are tiny islands in a sea of boring. The film is capped by a characteristically
bland performance by ER's Eriq La Salle, who, if he is
capable of showing emotion, has never shown it to me. Director
Romanek appears to be grasping at straws, regularly depending
on scary music to create tension Williams cannot deliver. I'm
sorry, but watching him walk around Wal-Mart with a grim look
on his face does not scare me—I do that every time I'm in
Wal-Mart. *½
