One hour photo

Year of release : 2002

Run time : 1h36m

Genre : Psychological Thriller

Cast : Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole, Eriq La Salle

The movie was written and directed by Mark Romanek.

The movie opens with Sy Parrish, a photo technician, at an one hour photo lab in the SavMart megastore, being interrogated by the police. We see the events unfolding from the beginning, as he narrates the story.

Sy says his favorite customers were the Yorkin family, especially the wife and son, who were always there with new photos. The husband is always busy, never having time for his family.

Whenever he sees them, Sy comes to greet them, charging them less, and offering them free gifts. He makes one set of pictures for them and one for himself.

Sy is the last one to leave the store. He goes to a restaurant to eat, and looking at the Yorkins’ pictures, he lies he is related to them when asked by a waitress. He lives alone, with his pet hamster, and seems to have no friends. He has a wall of his house filled with the Yorkin family’s pictures through the years, and framed pictures of them through the house.

Jake, the son of the Yorkin family, is the only one who sensed Sy is alone and sad, telling his mother about it.

Nina, the mother, fights with her husband about him being neglectful to her and her son.

Because he calls the technician to fix the photo machine due to it not being calibrated correctly, the colors being slightly off, his boss is asking him to take a vacation, as he’s always at work.

He uses this time to stalk the Yorkins, daydreaming about being part of the family, and buying an old picture of a woman, lying to Nina later on when he meets her, it’s his mother.

He goes to Jake’s European football practice, and talking to him, he offers him the toy box he wanted, that his father didn’t want to buy him. Jake refuses it.

He even manages to sit next to Nina at a restaurant in a megastore, pretending to read the book he saw she bought, by Deepak Chopra, starting a conversation.

One day, a woman named Maya, brings her pictures to be developed, and he thinks he knows her from somewhere.

His boss finds discrepancies in his logs, realizing hundreds of dollars are missing, considering the amount of prints they are selling, meaning Sy doesn’t pay from his own money when he gives things for free, makes discounts or makes photo copies for himself. So he fires him.

Sy realizes where does he know the woman from, and looks through the Yorkin family pictures, seeing her in a football picture of the couple. He goes to work, looking through her pictures, and finds they are with Nina’s husband, Will, the two of them kissing, and doing other things couple do.

Sy puts the picture in which they kiss in Nina’s pictures, and follows her. He sees her almost driving the car off the road, but she doesn’t say anything to her husband.

So Sy decides to take matters into his own hands.

I personally enjoyed the movie.

Sy is always dressing in the colors of his home,car or office, blending into the scenery, as if he’s trying to make himself invisible, or maybe suggesting he’s invisible to others. His interactions with others, especially the Yorkins are awkward, the way it is when we talk to store employees and acquaintances, making small talk. Sy is a sad character, as he has no friends or family.

Will never has time for his family, pretending he’s busy, but he was busy effing his colleague / employee.

Connie Nielsen is gorgeous, and she plays the cheated wife. Who would cheat on her? They tried to uglify her, I think, but it didn’t work.

The acting was good from everyone, especially from Robin Williams who plays a role opposite to the ones he is known for. Speaking of Robin Williams, may he rest in peace, I watched one of his stand up comedies many years ago, and he was amazing, like a one man show.

The soundtrack was good.

The visual effects were good.

The movie received positive reviews from the critics and audiences of platforms like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and was nominated for a few awards, winning a few.

Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a C.

The movie grossed a little over 52 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 12 million dollars.

The director first asked Jack Nicholson to play Sy, but the actor turned it down, saying it was too much like his role from The Shining from 1980.

Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity.

You can watch the full movie for free, on the Ok.Ru platform.

Rating : Worth a watch !