FILM REVIEW: ONE HOUR PHOTO
I watched Mrs. Doubtfire the other day, and it was a rewarding experience. Well, not the several hours I wasted on the FX Network’s millionth rebroadcast of the 1993 flick, but the several hours spent in the Wehrenberg cinema screening One Hour Photo. The latter by itself is a nice looking examination of loneliness and obsession, but when contrasted with a typical Robin Williams film Photo’s impact becomes much stronger.
Williams stars as Sy Parrish, an employee at bland, sterile Sav-Mart (your typical discount retail outlet,) developing pictures in the one hour photo booth. It’s been his job for the better part of two decades, though it would be more accurate to call it his life: with no friends and no family, Sy has little else to live for.
What comfort and companionship he does have comes by living vicariously through the pictures he brings to life, most notably those of an affluent couple, Nina and Will Yorkin (Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan) and their son Jakob (Dylan Smith.) Will is the owner of a graphics and design company trying to persuade his wife to drop the ancient 35 millimeter and go digital; Sy jokingly (but correctly) complains it would put him out of a job.
She’s underrating his dependence on the Yorkins; he rushes to the counter when Nina arrives, writing down her address off the top of his head, making sure to add an extra set of prints for himself. Examining his copies at a diner after work, a waitress asks if they’re his family; he responds affirmatively. One of his apartment walls is a shrine to the Yorkins, a ten-foot high montage of the family’s history from marriage to birth, tended to by Sy between his fantasies of lounging around the Yorkin household and attending Jakob’s soccer practices. The latter he makes a reality, with much apprehension from the youngster. To say Sy is obsessed with the family would win you Understatement of the Year.
The point is made, though, that no one bothers to take pictures of the not-so-happy times, and midway through the film Sy discovers this is true even about his perfect fantasy family; not everything at the Yorkins’ is as storybook as imagined. Will’s been dipping his pen in company ink, and if this when his boss (Gary Cole, at times reminding me too much of Bill Lumbergh from “Office Space”, though not intentionally) discovers he’d been making extra prints and giving away free disposable cameras as birthday presents (well, to the Yorkin kid at least.)
Termination and revelation put Sy on an unstoppable downward spiral. Obsessed for years with this family, specifically Nina (while he fantasized about being called “Uncle Sy”, deep down I imagine he’d rather Jakob be able to call him “Dad”,) he no longer has a reason to live; his central obsession has been taken away from him, and he no longer has the opportunity to find another if he wanted to. He looks to exact revenge on Will…but for himself, or Nina?
One Hour Photo doesn’t pretend to be great suspense; we know the drill, and given that the film is told in retrospect from a police holding cell, we know most of the outcome, at least some basic facts. The plot could easily be a TV movie-of-the-week, albeit one of the smarter ones, but decent performances by the entire cast is matched by the beautiful look of the film; Sy’s sanctuary, the photo lab, is the corner office in a pale, fluorescent-lighted hell, contrasting with the beauty of the Yorkins’ beautiful suburban abode. As Sy eats lunch alone in the Sav-Mart employee lounge, writer/director Mark Romanek circles the camera around, trapping Sy in the white prison of his workplace while he stares into space, daydreaming of his alternate reality.
What really makes the film successful, though, is not just the remarkable look, but Robin Williams setting aside any doubt that he’s an incredible actor; all his bad performances, from his sappy mid-90s comedies to his inane, half-drunk jumping around on The Tonight Show several times a year serve to show the range of this incredible performer. With his hair chopped short and dyed a muted blonde (almost matching Sav-Mart,) he’s Webster’s example of inhibited, polar opposite of the normal Williams role. If this was his debut film he would be heralded as a great thespian, but some of Sy would be lost; watching him now impresses you even more when you remember all the roles in Williams’ past. There’s something just not right.
Williams does more underacting here than he could do overexerting himself in a score of films, and accomplishes one thing he’s never been able to do before: you forget you’re watching Robin Williams. All you see is Sy Parrish, a frightening individual but understandably so. Falling through the cracks of life, Sy grasped onto the only thing he could find that made him happy, and his eagerness to make fantasy into reality contributed to its disappearance. This, unlike Mrs. Iphagenia Doubfire, is a real character, and one worth the time to examine. A year ago, I didn’t think Mr. Williams had it in him; I stand corrected.