Aug 31, 2002 12:22 PM
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(Updated Sep 13, 2002 06:19 AM)
''One Hour Photo'' moves along at such a captivatingly steady pace, that you don't even notice that its short running time of just over an hour and a half.
But the real gem of ''One Hour Photo'' is that Robin Williams once again proves his adeptness at choosing unique and interesting vehicles that really challenge and reveal new layers to his acting abilities. This year alone Williams has turned out three very dark and unique roles in great films such as the dark comedy ''Death to Smoochy,'' and the Hitchcockian thriller ''Insomnia.'' All three of his performances stand up nicely against other unique performances in his oeuvre, such as his roles in ''The World According to Garp,'' ''The Fisher King,'' ''Being Human'' and ''What Dreams May Come.''
Writer and Director Mark Romanek has created an oddly appealing story that dealve into the themes of what motivates people in light of personal isolation due to loneliness and loss. But the movie transcends those themes by acknowledging that they all lead into some form of redemption.
The story begins at the end, with Williams's character Seymour (Sy) Parrish, being incarcerated for crimes yet unkown. Quickly, the movie flashes back in time and moves forward towards that crime, slowly and carefuly crafting the story of Sy's involvement in Nina (Connie Nielsen) and Will (Michael Vartan) Yorkin's family life. And yet Sy's involvement isn't anywhere near normal, beginning from a subtlety benign distance and developing slowly over a ten year period of time into a startlingly strange fixation on this family that Sy secretly adopts as his own.
Romanek's unique filmmaking style is subtlety reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's ''Vertigo'' and Sam Mendes's ''American Beauty.'' The imagery and settings are very stark but at the same time very visceral in laying down deep emotional impacts throughout the arch of the film. Sy is very Hitchcockian in nature, harking back to the character of Norman Bates in ''Psycho,'' a character who covets what he can't have and deals with his frustrations in very anti-social ways. Like Norman, Sy also covets what he can't have, and his own envy ultimately leads to him doing whatever he can to protect and sanctify those images that seem so real, and yet to his own admission, are really only one tiny point of view of a much grander and complex circle of life.
One of the many intriguing revelations of ''One Hour Photo'' has Williams's revealing that ''According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the word ''snapshot'' was originally a hunting term.'' The symbolism inherent in this line paints a darkeningly depressing viewpoint of something so common in our everyday lives. Like the photographs he helps develop, Sy is a character stuck in time.
It can be argued that many of Sy's thoughts and ideas are the same as those shared by professional or artistic photographers, and through Sy the film suggests that everyday snapshots really are taken for granted. ''One Hour Photo'' suggests that people rarely push photos beyond their simplistic meanings and representations; and that they rarely look at the more powerful realizations and insights photography can provide as a cultural medium of expression. And in the end, Sy's own social ineptness keeps him just as trapped as everyone else, stuck in that consumer driven snapshot world where meaning rarely rises up to truly transcend the everyday lives of individuals everywhere.
The greatest strength of ''One Hour Photo'' is how an audience is so easily captivated by this sadly inept, social outcast. The movie shines such an interesting light on the character of Sy Parrish, that we are sucked into his world and even feel sorry for him as his life takes all the wrong turns, ending up being just as perishable as the photos snapped by those who enter his life through the dark, electronic machines of one hour photo finishing.
And for these suggestions alone, combined with some remarkable performances and a uniquely original look, ''One Hour Photo'' is a film worth seeing. It's deeply haunting and chilling in its explorations of life, and for that it's one of the year's best.
Grade: A -
(Movie originally reviewed on August 30, 2002)
