Review of One Hour Photo (2002) by David A — 23 Feb 2014

Robin Williams gives a chilling performance- my favourite of his to date, in this dark and traumatic drama that succeeds in creating a character that one can both sympathise with and feel utterly nauseated by.

'STALKER MOVIE', 'FUNNY GUY TRYING TO BE SERIOUS', 'BIG GIMMICK' are all things that I thought when I first went into this film several years ago now. I'm pleased to say, many viewings later, that I was completely wrong and that I knew it from the very start of my first viewing- the stark visuals along with the nuanced and reptilian character of Sy Parrish take you on a very uncomfortable ride where you know it can only end badly but you can't wait to find out how.

The first thing to address about this film is the job of its main character- a photo processor at a supermarket/mall. It's the perfect position from which to create a character who has a hole and who feeds that hole with an obsession which is, in turn, fed through the photographs that he develops. This film is all about portraying Sy as someone that we can feel for and connect with while also showing us the undeniable truth that he is someone that we have to be against- he is dangerous, disturbed, and predatory but he's also human. While it may struggle to tow this line perfectly (it possibly oversteps the mark a little in its final moments), it's still leaps and bounds ahead of most films that attempt to portray stalkers and its human element is so strong and touching that the film never feels sleazy or perverse as it goes deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole that is Sy's obsession with one of his customers and her family.

You'll cringe watching this one and I never think that a film should be trying to create a response like that from its audience but this isn't a combination of unpleasant moments that create the feeling that this film is just out to get you- those moments feel relatively sparse and arrive in between moments with some real depth and even with some nice comedy in there too. Sy's character is built so well and we come to know where he stands in the world and how this impacts him, step by step, meaning that we never start off out to get him, and we're able to be surprised by the extent of his madness.

Williams isn't the only thing here though- Nielsen does a great job too and Vartan and Cole work as great counters to Sy's character. The only issue that I'd bring up is the character of Jake whose childlike innocence begins to become a little overbearing as he features more and more in the story.

I also felt that the last third of the film began to fall too much into your homogenised thriller territory and that the occasional scene felt a little cheap in its execution (it features a scene that takes place in Sy's imagination for instance that could have been done without the deception that comes with it) and the film just feels a little cluttered by the end, with me wanting to know how Sy's actions impacted everyone else more than I was shown.

However, these issues are small compared to how great a character study we are given here and if you want to see a worthwhile film that covers the topic of obsession then I highly recommend that you check this one out.