One Hour Photo is a psychological thriller directed by Mark Romanek and starring Robin Williams as “Sy” Parrish in a role that is very unlike your usual Robin William’s fare. Sy has been running the one-hour photo lab at SavMart for the last 10 years and is very attentive and meticulous that “his” customers receive the best service possible… and he should because he has nothing else going on in his life: No companionship, no kids, no friends, nothing at all. Sy knows most of his customers but none interest him more than the well-to-do Yorkins which he believes is the perfect family and whose life he lives vicariously through the picture he has developed for them over the years. There is picture-perfect mother and wife Nina (beautiful Connie Nielsen), husband Will (Michael Vartan) and son Jake (Dylan Smith). There would be nothing wrong being a little envious but Sy is downright obsessed, keeping copies of all their pictures which he pasted onto a wall in his apartment. Sy thinks he know them so much that he vicariously thinks of himself as Uncle Sy and begins to stalk the family without noticing. His attempt to befriend the Yorkins are gently rebuffed but everything starts to go downhill when he is fired from his job and he discovers that the Yorkins’ life is not so idyllic after all.

You think this is creepy? Well just watch the movie because it is uncomfortably creepy at times as the director has the viewer become Sy’s accomplice. Nevertheless, the movie does a good job threading that line without going into the macabre and there is something about Sy that make you almost sympathize with him. That same feeling of sadness and melancholy that you get when you meet someone who has nothing to look up to in life. This is how powerful Robin Williams is in this movie which is, I believe one of his best performance of his career. Sy is a fully developed character with complex motives, matching bland attire and inner voice-over. The supporting cast is solid but the Yorkins family is underdeveloped which hurts the movie as a whole. We don’t get any background on why they would be dysfunctional in the first place and there is no good explanation for Nina’s and Will’s behavior. Nielsen and Vartan do a nice job of cautiously but gently rebuffing Williams creepy kindness but that’s pretty much all they are asked to do. Nina gets the most screentime of the Yorkins family but yet, Sy goes after Will who is apparently a douchebag anyway. It would have helped to develop their characters much further so the audience can feel more apprehensive for them or have Sy go after the wife or the kid instead of the adulterous husband. The cinematography is solid, contrasting Sy’s bland surrounding (the SavMart, his apartment, even his car) with the colorful pictures of the Yorkins’ family while the musical score is your average thriller-type fare. The main problem of the movie is the ending which is a bit rushed after the relatively slow building of the first 70 minutes as well as unrealistic and just not so thrilling. We also know right away that Sy is an obsessed creep so the first 30 or 40 minutes feel like they were wasted as the characters barely develop beyond what we already expect, it may have worked better if he was a little less obvious especially at the beginning of the movie.

Enjoyable creepy movie solidified by a great performance by Robin Williams. Disappointing ending and lightly written roles make this movie merely good.

B-