With its mixture of chilling suspense and poignant drama, it will shake your nerves and stir your emotions.
One Hour Photo (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:190
Fresh:155
Rotten:35
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: Robin Williams is every effective in this creepy thriller.
Theatrical Release:Aug 21, 2002 Limited
Box Office: $31,469,714
Synopsis: Viewed through our photographs, it would seem we have lived a joyous, leisurely existence. Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), who makes this observation, adversely leads a lonely life, operating a photo... Viewed through our photographs, it would seem we have lived a joyous, leisurely existence. Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), who makes this observation, adversely leads a lonely life, operating a photo lab in a SavMart department store. He escapes his dreary reality through the family photos of Nancy Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) and her family. His admiration of the Yorkins becomes an obsession, as he fashions himself as Uncle Sy to little Jake (Dylan Smith). Sy's judgment becomes impaired by his unhealthy interest, causing him to lose his job of 11 years. As his final day approaches, Sy develops photographs revealing an indiscretion on the part of Mr. Yorkin (Michael Vartan). The unstable Sy now develops a disturbing, calculated plan to instill family values to the Yorkin clan. Much of ONE HOUR PHOTO takes place inside a department store similar to a Wal-Mart, 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, it is permeated with an uncomfortable fear emanating from its damaged protagonist. [More]
Starring: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole
Starring: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole, Eriq La Salle, Dylan Smith, Nick Searcy
Director: Mark Romanek
Director: Mark Romanek
Screenwriter: Mark Romanek
Producer: Christine Vachon, Stanley J. Wlodkowski, Pamela Koffler
Composer: Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
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Reviews for One Hour Photo
Dark and unrepentant, this excursion into the epicenter of percolating mental instability is not easily dismissed or forgotten.
Watching One Hour Photo, you think about the people you don't know but who are part of your life.
... legitimate thrills and chills with minimal bloodshed and only suggested violence.
Williams gauges the performance perfectly, starting out as a kind of Forrest Gump character but getting deeper and richer as the plot turns until we are both terrified of him and worried for him.
Its well of thorn and vinegar (and simple humanity) has long been plundered by similar works featuring the insight and punch this picture so conspicuously lacks.
This might be the best pure dramatic lead performance Williams has ever given.
A series of immaculately composed shots of Patch Adams quietly freaking out does not make for much of a movie.
Hence, One Hour Photo is a toxic snapshot that needs no further development. Absorbingly wry and telling, Romanek's psychological saga competently penetrates the psyche.
Williams plays Sy, another of his open-faced, smiling madmen, like the killer in Insomnia. He does this so well you don't have the slightest difficulty accepting him in the role.
While Robin 'Rubberface' Williams won't make you pee your pants from laughter -- he will manage to scare the smirk right off your face in this serious psychological thriller.
One Hour Photo, the meticulously chilling drama that pivots on Sy's dangerous self-delusions, comes closer than any other thriller in recent memory to achieving the Hitchcockian ideal of mortal terror in broad daylight.
No one who sees this movie will ever again take it for granted that photo shop employees couldn't care less about their pictures.
It's not nearly as intelligent, thoughtful or penetrating as it promises to be. Yet the consistent delicacy and emotional clarity of Williams' acting in One Hour Photo makes the picture impossible to dismiss.
It sounds like another clever if pointless excursion into the abyss, and that's more or less how it plays out.
Latest News for One Hour Photo
December 03, 2008:
Mark Romanek to Direct Alex Garland's Never Let Me Go ![]()
Prolific commercial and music video director Mark Romanek, who most recently directed One Hour Photo in 2002, will helm Alex Garland's Never Let Me Go, the film adaptation of... More...
February 09, 2007:
Mark Romanek to Direct New "Wolf Man"
We mentioned this story a while back, I believe, but now we have some solid progress, so here we go again: Universal is hot to remake "The Wolf Man," which would... More...
October 05, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Departed" Is Best Reviewed Wide Release of 2006
This week at the movies, we've got cops and robbers in Boston ("The Departed," starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon), chainsaw massacres in Texas... More...
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 49% 49% | Taking Woodstock |
| 26% 26% | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard |
| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
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