One Hour Photo (Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen) 1/2
On the same day that I went to see One Hour Photo, I picked up a set of pictures from the developpers earlier that afternoon. After seeing this movie, it's hard to "picture" myself feeling comfortable dropping off rolls of film in the future. Well, maybe I'm not in as precarious or drastic a position, seeing as how my photos tend to be boring and relatively tame, but the movie did remind me that for every roll that is dropped off to a photo store, there is a person operating the machinery, looking at each pose. Of course, many stores now deal exclusively with machines only, but never mind that.
Robin Williams plays Seymour Parrish, a lonely department store employee who treasures his job dearly. He processes film for his customers with meticulous precision and takes extreme pride in his work. Parrish has also "developped" a fetish for a certain family, the Yorkins. Mounting copies of their personal photos onto a completely covered wall mural in his apartment, we begin to sense he may not be entirely stable. This point is re-inforced early in the film, when he discovers that the windshield on his car has been cracked. Seymour (or Sy) is beginning to see the world through a fractured lens.
As written and directed by Mark Romanek, we are neither required nor expected to ever feel complete empathy for Sy, the photo guy. He is a character study for us to observe and watch as he fumes his way into circumstances beyond his control. As the movie progresses, like a stalker or any other unstable figure, Sy operates not on rationality, but on impulse. His one-tracked "focus" allows him to "filter" out things which other people might pay more attention to. We are not surprised at the mistakes he makes due to his one-track mind.
Williams is obviously not a typical first choice for the part, but his recent decisions in film roles have hinted that he has had this coming for a while. His portrayal of Sy is patient and disjointed, without being intentionally quirky or sly (which with someone like Williams is always a possibility). In fact, there are next to no laughs or smiles anywhere in the movie at all. It is dark, and the viewer is unsure of what will happen next. In a way, our own anticipation becomes voyeuristic, much like Sy. Williams inhabits the character completely, as when he gets into an argument with a photo machine repairman. A brief glimpse of a volcanic reaction is hinted at, then inevitably erupts. Is it coincidence that it is because the CYan toner is off balance inside the machine? Or take a scene late in the movie when Sy is being pursued and accidentally enters a completely dark room (it is a medical conference pertaining to the anatomy of the human eye). Watch Williams's face as he realizes he has just allowed light to enter the darkened room, "exposing" himself to potential ruin.
I haven't even mentioned the supporting actors, who are crucial to counter-pointing Sy's instability. Connie Nielsen is strong as the ambiguous mother, Gary Cole plays the token malicious boss just to this side of stereotype, and Eriq LaSalle is very good as a detective trained to understand motivations and circumstances before taking direct action. I also appreciated the unnerving use of elevator and shopping mall music in crucial scenes when Sy is depicted walking through the sterile, Kubrick-ian confines of the SavMart (clearly a dig at WalMart). Ironically, it is when Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek's original score sets in that the music is least appropriate to the environment. It's too forced. Above all, I like that Romanek keeps Sy volatile and unsettling, even when the film crosses the finish line. I guess you could say the open-ended conclusion to One Hour Photo is "picture perfect".
