One Hour Photo (2002)

Here's a film I'll admit really took me by surprise. Robin Williams stars as a middle aged dude named Sy, an extremely lonely and isolated guy working in a photo lab at the local Save Mart. Seemingly devoid of any friends or family whatsoever, Sy has sort of latched himself onto a family who frequently get their pictures developed by him. By latched onto, I mean that Sy has, over the years, saved copies of the family's photos and plastered the pics up on his apartment wall in one massive collage as a tribute to his idea of the "perfect family", of which he desperately wishes he belonged to. Sy is of course a little unbalanced, that much is obvious, but the viewer does not fear him as much as he feels sorry for the character. The guy is utterly alone in the world, and his desire to belong to a family is, well, almost touching in a neurotic kind of way. Eventually Sy's little fantasy world wakes up to harsh reality and he soon takes the deep and refreshing dive into sheer psychotic behavior. However, don't go into this one thinking you'll see Robin Williams playing a deranged photo guy who runs around and hacks people to death. That's not what this film is about, and it is most definitely not a slasher flick.

What it is however, is an excellent character study in the "Taxi Driver" tradition of what complete and utter social isolation does to the human brain. Even though Sy is a loon, you have to feel sorry for the poor bastard. He eats lunch alone at work, has supper alone at a café, goes home alone to his apartment, goes to bed and then does it all over again. His seemingly only reason for living is his crappy photo lab job, to which he obsesses over every small detail. This film really pulls you into Sy's lonely world, and Robin Williams must really be given credit where credit is due. His performance in this film is top-notch, and a major change from his comedic roles. The filmmakers did a tremendous job in building the tension whenever Sy and his perfect family are shown together, as the viewer is never sure how Sy is going to act. The look of the film is also very nice; particularly the shots inside the sterile as a hospital "Save Mart" where Sy works, as the building has a sort of peculiar "institutional" feel to it. The acting by all is very nice, particularly by Williams as previously mentioned. I do wish that we could have gotten a little deeper insight into the family's various problems and such, it seemed like they were just there to give the Sy character something to play off of and that's about it. Many people did not care for the film's ending, though I feel the direction that was taken saved the flick from ending like so many others have, thus ruining the pictures individuality. "One Hour Photo" was a very nice surprise and comes highly recommended. You'll never look at "Mork and Mindy" the same again.