One Hour Photo
Two things prompted me to see One Hour Photo:
- Seeing Robin Williams live at the Andre Agassi gala and
- Reviewing Red Dragon last week.
The villain in both movies is the photo developer guy, an unbalanced loner who lives and lusts after the all-American families he meets on celluloid. Even without Hannibal Lector, this movie is creepy, colder and far scarier than Red Dragon. It is an edge of your seat psychological thriller.
Robins Williams is fantastic. He decided to change his career strategy and crop out those warm and fuzzy Pat Adams like characters. (It got to the point I needed an insulin shot every time I bought a ticket to one of his films.)
This summer the Academy Award winning actor played the villain in three movies: Death To Smoochy, which did as well as Michael Jackson's last album. But he was really good as the killer in Insomnia. Here, he is great. He makes his deeply disturbed character totally believable.
Williams plays Sy Parrish, who runs the photo department at Savmart, which looks exactly like my Walmart at Eastern and Serene. His clothing, skin and hair are all the same boring, bland beige. He looks 20 years older than he did on the MGM stage. On the surface he's just a lost, lonely person living on the outskirts of life. Inside, he can't handle disorder and perceived wrongs. His temper is swift and ugly. And he'll do anything to belong to the kind of families whose film he develops.
Williams is obsessed with the picture perfect Yorkin family. Connie Nielsen, of Gladiator fame, plays the sexy mom. Michael Vartan, from the TV show Alias, is the handsome Dad. Everyone fusses over eight year old Jake, played by newcomer Dylan Smith.
Williams makes extra prints of the Yorkins; they now cover one wall of his apartment as one scary montage. He has studied the faces so completely he recognizes one of the husband's employees when she comes in to have her photos developed. In the darkroom he discovers the husband is having an affair. (Lesson: if you are cheating on your spouse, don't take pictures!!!!)
When his employer discovers he's printing more photos then he's selling, Williams is shown the door. Williams cracks under this life-changing event; does his desire for revenge develop into homicide? I won't tell.
Great Robin Williams movies to rent:
- The World According to Garp
- Good Morning, Viet Nam
- Mrs. Doubtfire
- Good Will Hunting, where he won his Academy Award for best supporting actor.
I'd do a double feature with Taxi Driver. Williams' revenge against the Yorkins for not being his image of perfection is as chilling as anything Travis Bickle did in Taxi Driver.
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