One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo

Viewed through family photographs, it would seem most people live joyous, leisurely lives. Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), who makes this observation, adversely leads a lonely existence, operating a photo lab in a SavMart department store. To escape his dreary reality, he fixates on the photos of Nancy Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) and her family. But Sy's admiration of the Yorkins soon becomes an unhealthy obsession, impairing his judgment and causing him to lose his job of 11 years. As his final day approaches, Sy discovers photographs revealing an indiscretion on the part of Mr. Yorkin (Michael Vartan), and the now unstable technician develops a disturbing, calculated plan to instill his own idea of family values to the Yorkin clan.
Much of ONE HOUR PHOTO takes place inside a Walmart-like department store bordered in an icy blue. This cold atmosphere creates a solitary framework for the disturbed photo developer Sy Parrish, played with a melancholic detachment by Williams, working here against type. Director Mark Romanek (STATIC) has created a thriller with little violence, instead focusing on the uncomfortable fear emanating from its damaged protagonist.