 One Hour Photo (2002) Robin Williams Number Three would take a big Number Two on Number Two and Number One, because this is the Robin Williams we were promised way back in the day when he stood on that desk and yelled, "Carpateum!" Or later, when he awakened from a long-term coma and stood on a desk and yelled, "Corpezelum!" This is the Truly Good Actor Robin Williams. And Thank God, because One Hour Photo hinges on his performance, and it is indeed a Truly Good Movie. Williams, not exactly a wallflower by nature, plays Sy the Photo Guy, a totally nondescript photo developer in a big Wal Mart-esque superstore. The only thing that distinguishes Sy is his fascination—nay, obsession!—with the Yorkinses, a seemingly perfect family whose pictures he's developed well nigh on 10 years. But, as he states in a thoughtful voice-over, no one takes pictures of the things they want to forget. As Sy digs into the Yorkins' life, he becomes disillusioned by the reality behind the happy images, so much so that he believes he must take action to fix what's wrong. Now if I could only get Sy to do the same for my leaky urethra, I probably wouldn't have such shame about urinating in public. As unpleasant as my urine retention problems may be, One Hour Photo paints an even more disturbing picture of how thin the walls are between ourselves and those of the servant class who develop our pictures, clean our homes, taste our poisoned food, and trade our dirty syringes for sterile swabs and rubber tourniquets. The things these people know about us, and what they could do with that knowledge, well it's enough to want to fire them all and replace them with Vaculuxe™ brand vacuum tubes everywhere. On the surface, Sy is everything one could ask for in a service professional—meticulous, friendly, generous, and considerate. However, one of the many subtle suggestions made by One Hour Photo is the idea that, in a Wal Mart kind of world, speed and profit are far preferable to the personal touch; therefore someone like Sy is almost totally useless; but that energy and desire to be of service has to go somewhere, and mayhap springs the seeds of his mania. He needs to be needed, and creates a scenario whereby in retrospect he actually is needed. As much as we sympathize with Sy, we're never sure if he's the hero or the bad guy, largely thanks to Williams's performance. It's a filmmaker's film, top to bottom, as meticulous as Sy himself wants to be, winding up and up with tension and several wonderfully creepy moments, using images and music ingeniously. But the shiny surfaces and crisp ambient music don't overwhelm what is a human and sometimes touching movie, that resonates and makes you thinkify deep ponderfications. If you needed any further prompting before throwing on your overcoat, riding your Vaculuxe™ Car to the Videomat vending machine, inserting your Indenticard, and selecting D-11, One Hour Photo also includes a sprightly supporting performance by the sorely underrated Gary Cole, often reason enough to watch any film he chooses to grace. I truly wish I could say I was kidding about that, but when Hollywood finally packs up its bags and clicks off the light, it is, most certainly, Gary Cole that the world will remember.
Review by Crimedog |