I recently made a trip to Columbus with my friend. We spent most of the day there. We decided to see a movie while there. Several movies have never made it here that we have wanted to see. We had been wanting to see One Hour Photo, but it wasn’t at the theater here. It was playing there, so we decided to see it. The theater we saw it in was very nice and had stadium seating. Someone sat right in front of me - why do people sit directly in front of someone when there are only 10 people at the most in the theater? Anyway, a person sat right in front of me, but I was still able to see because of the stadium seating. We’ve decided that we are going to try to see movies there in that theater every so often since it is so nice.
CAST
Robin Williams - Seymour Parrish
Connie Nielsen - Nina Yorkin
Michael Vartan - Will Yorkin
Dylan Smith - Jakob Yorkin
Eriq La Salle - Detective James VanDerZee
Paul H. Kent - Yoshi Ararki
Mark Romanek - Writer/Director
One Hour Photo was 98 minutes long and rated R. There was swearing throughout the movie, including several occurances of the word that rhymes with luck. There was some nudity and a few sexual situations in the movie. There really isn’t any violence in the movie, but there was one brief scene that was nasty. Children should not see this movie.
PLOT
Sy Parrish has worked in the photo lab at Sav-Mart for many years. He took his job seriously. It was very important to him. He took pride in making good prints for the customers. He lived alone and didn’t have any friends. Sy knew the regular customers of the photo lab, especially the Yorkin family. Nina and Will had been getting their film developed at Sav-Mart for years, since Nina was pregnant. Their son, Jakob, had just turned nine years old.
Sy knew a lot about the Yorkin family. He knew how old Jakob was. Sy knew Will’s name even though he never came into the store to get film developed. Sy knew their address without asking when Nina dropped off film. If Yoshi, the man that worked with Sy in the photo lab, started to take care of Nina, Sy would rush out and take over. Sy was obsessed with the family. He had been making an extra set of all of their pictures ever since Nina was pregnant. Sy thought of himself as part of the family, as Uncle Sy. He covered most of one wall in his apartment with the Yorkin’s photos. Sy would follow Nina at times, and sometimes he sat outside their house watching them. Once Sy showed up at Jakob’s soccer practice and sat in the stands watching.
Sy had some problems with the manager of Sav-Mart, Bill, at times. One day Sy called a repairman to fix one of the machines when it had a minor problem. Sy thought it was a big deal because it would affect the photos the machine printed. The repairman didn’t fix it, and was upset that Sy had called him out over such a small problem. The repairman and Sy got into a shouting match in the store, in front of several customers, which really upset Bill. Another time, Bill pointed out that Sy had a lot of vacation time saved up and he should use it. During that same conversation, Bill also pointed out that Sy had taken too long for his lunch break. Later, Bill called Sy into his office and told him about a problem he had discovered. The number of prints made wasn’t matching up to the number of prints sold. More prints were made than sold. Soon after that, Sy discovered something about the Yorkin’s that greatly upset him. Those two things caused Sy to flip out in a big way.
**End of Plot Discussion**
I really enjoyed One Hour Photo. The movie was a thriller and had several suspenseful moments in it. There wasn’t much action in the movie. There was a little bit near the end of the movie. This was a slower movie, so some people may be bored since there isn’t that much action in it. I wasn’t bored by the movie. It kept my interest throughout. The movie focused on Sy and why he did something. The movie started off after something had happened. Sy started to explain why that event had happened. Most of the movie showed the events that lead up to what happened after Sy flipped out. In some scenes, Sy would be heard narrating, explaining about something. The end of the movie went back to the setting of the original scene. There were one or two things that happened then that I haven’t figured out yet. The movie did make me think, and I still haven’t figured out one or two things. I think that this movie was a psychological thriller that was exploring a disturbed man.
I thought there was a little bit of mystery in One Hour Photo. The mystery related to why Sy was so obsessed with the Yorkin family. That wasn’t fully explained in the movie. Sy was a lonely man with no family or friends. He latched onto the Yorkins and imagined that he was part of the family. I know he did that because he was lonely. However, it was never really explained why Sy picked the Yorkin family and not any of the other customers. What about a young married couple expecting their first child appealed to Sy so much that he became obsessed with them? They did look happy in their pictures, but most people tend to look happy in their pictures. Why did Sy fixate on them and not another family?
There were one or two things that did bug me a little bit about One Hour Photo. Sy tried to act normal, but he had problems. There was just something a little off about Sy, even when he appeared to be normal. It was clear by some of the things he did that things weren’t normal with him, but the Yorkins, Nina especially, were clueless. She didn’t seem to find it odd that Sy knew so much about her family. It would be normal for someone to recognize regular customers and to make some small talk, but Sy went beyond that. He knew way too much and was just a bit too personal in some conversations with Nina. One day, Sy showed up at Jakob’s soccer practice and sat there watching like he was a family member. Jakob did seem to realize that it wasn’t normal for Sy to show up like that, but he didn’t tell his parents what happened. Another day, Will was in Sav-Mart looking for some sort of cable for his computer when Sy saw him and started a conversation, calling Will by name. Will did seem to be bothered a little by the fact that Sy knew his name. One time Sy followed Nina to the mall and deliberately bumped into her. They talked for a little while and Sy made a comment that did disturb Nina, but he quickly won her back because of the book he was reading. Nina was not the brightest character in the movie. It wasn’t believable to me that she was so clueless about the fact that Sy had problems. Later in the movie, Sy did a few things that weren’t too bright either.
There was something else that really bothered me related to One Hour Photo. Bill talked to Sy about some discrepancies in the numbers of photos made and photos sold. It was made to seem like this had just popped up in the last few weeks, and the numbers were off by hundreds. Sy had been making extra copies of the Yorkin’s pictures for at least ten years. So why did it take Bill so long to discover the problem? And why were the numbers off by so much during that time frame when Nina had only taken in a few roles of film?
Several scenes in One Hour Photo took place in the discount store where Sy worked. He worked in the photo lab of Sav-Mart, a fictional discount store. The store seemed to be some kind of a super store that had groceries, toys, computer items, electronics, and several other items all in one store. The store wasn’t extremely busy, but the photo lab was at times. Sy and Yoshi were the only two characters even shown working in the photo lab. I would think that there would be more than just two people working there.
In One Hour Photo there were some things that happened that were very convenient. It seemed like everyone in town went to Sav-Mart to get their pictures developed. Sy just happened to be walking by when Will was in Sav-Mart looking some kind of cord for his computer. Nina didn’t find anything odd about Sy. Nina dropped off some film right after Sy had the meeting with Bill and got some bad news. After that, Sy discovered something related to the Yorkin family in the pictures of another customer. Then he just happened to be alone in the photo lab so he could stick the photos in with the ones that Nina dropped off. The movie would have had a different outcome if those events had not happened like they did.
Color and lighting were important in One Hour Photo. Sav-Mart was very white and bright, almost blindly bright. It had an unnatural look to me. In one scene early in the movie, after Sy left work and walked to his car, there was a yellow cast to everything. I’m not sure why that was done, but it did look strange. Sy’s kitchen was also bright white. His apartment was very drab and almost colorless. The only color came from the wall covered in the Yorkin’s photos. Sy dressed in dull, drab looking clothes all the time. The Yorkins, Nina and Jakob especially, wore brighter, more colorful clothes. Their house, while not decorated in bright, blinding colors, looked more colorful than Sy’s apartment. It wasn’t dull and drab. The house looked lived in. Music seemed to play an important part in the movie too. Music was playing in the background of many scenes. It was louder in some scenes than others, and at times it was very creepy sounding.
Some of the acting in One Hour Photo wasn’t the best, but overall it was ok. I have been a fan of Robin Williams for a while now, and I'll see anything he is in. Robin Williams was brilliant. He was perfect as Sy, a lonely man with problems. Williams was very believable in this role. Sy was a bit of a geek, and Williams was able to convey that through his performance. The way Sy walked and some of his mannerisms, like constantly pushing his glasses up, really added to the character. The character of Sy was very life like and full of emotions. I felt bad for Sy at times in the movie. I can’t imagine anyone else playing Sy now. The character could have ended up being very different if another actor had the role. Williams is under rated and under appreciated as an actor at times. Hopefully this movie will change that for him. Robin Williams deserves another Oscar for this performance.
I’m use to seeing Williams as a nice guy, though he has played in two other movies this year in which his character was darker. He played Randolph, a man on the edge of a breakdown who decided to kill a character on a replacement child’s show in Death to Smoochy. He played Walter, an author who murdered a woman in Insomnia. And in One Hour Photo, he played a man obsessed with customers of the photo lab where he worked. All the characters were dark, but they were all different. Randolph was pretty much harmless, he was just having a break down because he lost his job. Walter, his character in Insomnia, was sane. He was just a cold-blooded killer. Sy had other problems. He was basically stalking a family that he dreamed of being part of. He also had some other problems, some of which are brought up at the end of the movie as a way to explain why he did something. Even before Sy flipped out, there was something about him that was not normal. I thought that Williams was wonderful in all three of these movies. The characters had some similarities, but they are very different from each other. The different roles he played this year really showed the range of Williams.
None of the other actors in One Hour Photo was as good as Robin Williams. His character was the main focus of the movie, so he had the most screen time. Nina had a lot of scenes too, so Connie Nielsen, the woman who played her in the movie, had a lot of screen time. I don’t think she was as good as Williams was, but she wasn’t horrible either. She just didn’t have a lot to work with for her character. Nina was not developed much at all. She seemed to be one dimensional. Michael Vartan wasn’t in that many scenes, but he was good in the scenes he had. When I saw the movie, I recognized him but I couldn’t remember what I had seen him in before. I remembered later. He was in Never Been Kissed and is currently on the television show Alias. His character was also one dimensional and flat, but he did the best with what he had to work with. He was looking pretty good too. Dylan Smith was good as Jakob. He wasn’t annoying in the role like some child actors can be. Gary Cole was in a few scenes here and there. He was really good in the scenes he had. Eriq La Salle showed up only briefly in the movie. He was not that good in his role. His acting seemed flat and unemotional. His acting in One Hour Photo reminded me of the acting he did as Dr. Benton on E.R. It seemed like he was just reading some of his lines at times. I did not like La Salle on E.R. and I didn’t like him in this movie either. I don’t think he can act. The presence of La Salle in One Hour Photo didn’t make me like the movie any less since his character wasn’t in much of the movie. If he’d had a larger role, I don’t think I would have liked the movie as much. If he’d had the lead, I’m sure I wouldn’t have bothered seeing the movie.
Sy Parrish was the main character of One Hour Photo, so he was the most developed character in the movie. He even explained some of his thoughts and feelings through the voice overs that were heard in some scenes. Something was shared at the end of the movie that helped to explain even more about Sy and why he was the way he was. The viewers didn’t get to find out everything about Sy, or why did he did a few things, but the viewer did get to know Sy fairly well. No other character in the movie was as developed as Sy. None even came close. Nina was in a lot of the movie too, but not much is learned about her at all, or any of the members of the Yorkin family. They were all one dimensional characters with no depth. I didn’t really care about the family in any way. It did come out that Nina and Will were having some problems in their marriage, but that wasn’t explored. It was just sort of thrown into the movie to serve as a reason for why Will did something that in turn helped to cause Sy to flip out. Bill and Yoshi both worked at Sav-Mart. That was just about the only things that were shared about either character. Yoshi and Sy did get along ok when they worked together. Bill didn’t seem to like Sy. Bill was the only character that picked up that there was something not right about Sy. There were a few other characters that turned up in a scene here and there, but they weren’t developed at all. Characters that were in a lot of the movie were hardly developed. The only character that was really developed was Sy.
CHARACTERS
Sy Parrish - He was a lonely man who worked in the photo lab at Sav-Mart for eleven years. His job was his life. He took his job seriously. It was important to him to do a good job on the prints of the pictures people brought in to be developed. He went a little over board in things related to his job. He had been obsessed with the Yorkin family for years. He made extra copies of all their photos and he covered one of the walls in his apartment with the photos. He followed Nina at times and sat outside the house watching them at times. He imagined that he was part of the family. He remembered their address without asking. He had some trouble on the job and that added to something he found out about the Yorkins caused him to have some sort of break down.
Nina Yorkin - She was married to Will. They had a nine-year-old son. Nina always took their photos into the photo lab at Sav-Mart to be developed. She had been doing that for at least ten years, and Sy had been developing her photos during that time. She didn’t pick up on the fact that Sy had some problems. She seemed to be a good mother. Her marriage had some problems.
Will Yorkin - He was Nina’s husband. He owned a company that did some kind of computer design work. He worked a lot of long hours and didn’t spend a lot of time with his wife and son. He never took film into Sav-Mart to be developed. He only went into the store once.
Jakob Yorkin - Nina and Will’s son. He just turned nine. He liked Sy, but seemed to realize it wasn’t normal for Sy to show up at his soccer practice. Jakob didn’t tell his parents about that though. He was a nice kid who loved his parents and was upset when he heard them arguing.
Bill Owens - He was the manager of the Sav-Mart where Sy worked. Bill noticed that something wasn’t right with Sy. Bill picked up on some small things. He didn’t like Sy that much.
Yoshi - He worked in the photo lab with Sy. Yoshi got along with Sy.
One Hour Photo was a good movie, but it did have a few flaws. It was slow in a few places, some things weren’t explained or explored as much as they could have been, and most of the characters were flat. Robin Williams gave a wonderful performance that deserves to be recognized with some awards. His performance was reason enough to watch the movie, unless you happen to hate him. Then you should stay away from this movie. I didn’t like Eriq La Salle in the movie, but he didn’t cause me to dislike the movie. People who don’t like slower movies with very little action shouldn’t see this one.
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