When a beloved comedian goes bad, audiences don’t know what to do with themselves. Their laughter grows more and more nervous, as they beg for him to do something legitimately funny. Thankfully, Robin Williams finally realized that he’s done enough to establish his comedian credit, and has gone back to proving that his Juilliard training is supposed to mean something. In One Hour Photo, he leaves the audience extremely unsettled, and that’s a good thing.
Williams plays Seymour “Sy” Parrish, a photo processing technician for a large Wal-Martish superstore. Working in a sterile environment within a sterile store, all color and life within Sy has been leached away, even as he strives for the perfect hues for his customer’s prints.
The only apparent joy in Sy’s life comes from the Yorkins, a young and seemingly happy family whose photos he has developed for nine years. As the film is all in flashback from the police station interview with Sy, we know that something terrible will happen. Of course, the fact that Sy makes his own set of prints out of every roll the Yorkins turn in, using them as wallpaper, would also be a big clue.
Thankfully, One Hour Photo does not end up taking the direction that it telegraphs. Writer/director Mark Romanek has far more on his mind than a by-the-numbers thriller. Instead, the film is as much a dissection of the psychology of loneliness as it is a suspense thriller, with the result being the smartest film of the summer, if not the whole year.
In playing Sy, Williams has built a shell around himself. Occasionally, glimpses of the charming man peek through, but only in the service of the greater tragedy. Sy has been damaged somehow, and though he might have the tools to be part of humanity, he has no idea how to actually use them. Instead, Williams has made him into a grey spitwad of a man, accidentally rebuffing all hands reached out to him, except for those of Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) and her son Jakob (Dylan Smith).
The only problem is, they don’t understand what they mean to Sy. Dylan might, as he is an extraordinarily sensitive kid. In a quiet but powerful scene, he weeps for Sy’s loneliness, and his mother convinces him to send good thoughts to Sy. For an instant, we can almost believe it works, but “the photo guy” is too lost in his own pain.
What that pain is never quite surfaces. For most of the film it lies dormant and unknowable, until kicked into overdrive by Sy’s perception of trouble in the Yorkins’ life. Even then, in Sy’s confession of it, it remains oblique. Williams gives an Oscar-caliber performance by keeping away from the stereotypical Oscar-winning moment.
Such restraint is typical of the film. One Hour Photo moves at a stately pace, but it never drags. We get as caught up in Sy’s reveries as he does, and though his behavior is disturbing, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for him. Romanek has written an extremely human character for Williams to inhabit.
In telling the story, Romanek also borrows from a wide range of cultural sources. Many shots lift their composition from famous paintings and other art films (even a moment from The Wall, though much quieter here). The anime Neon Genesis Evangelion plays an important part, though in a twisted manner. Lest you think the film is too high-brow, The Simpsons also has a crucial but quick role.
Few movies are of such power that I walk out wanting to walk right back in again. Fewer still are quiet pieces like this. But I will be seeing One Hour Photo again. And if I have time, again. This has been Robin Williams’ so-called “dark year,” but with this, Insomnia and Death To Smoochy, as an actor, he’s never burned brighter.
