Shop Smart! Shop Sav-Mart!
If there's one thing Hollywood knows how to do is to make a horror/suspense movie about things we people do everyday of our lives. Whether it's fishing, camping, taking a shower, or eating tomatoes. The newest idea? Let's make people scared to take their pictures in to get developed. Maybe this is what lead to the digital camera craze that's going on currently.
"One Hour Photo" is written and directed by Mark Romanek, who you might know as the music video director dude who told Trent Reznor it's a good idea to swing in the air gagged and naked and have a crucified monkey. I was curious about the director because the movie is shot very well and it's rather bright, but I just figured it went with the theme of the movie having to do with photography.
The movie opens with Robin Williams character, Sy Parrish, being arrested and being questioned by Detective James Van Der Beek...er no wait...James Van Der ZEE. Wow, that's creepy. Anyway, Van Der Beek, er, Zee is played by Eriq La Salle, who is the black doctor on "ER" and was also in "Coming To America", which if you haven't seen, I say stop reading this and go see it right now!!!
Sy tells Van Der Zee the whole story, which is he works at a photo lab inside a store called "Sav-Mart", and he really takes his job seriously. The thing is, he's become obsessed with this family, The Yorkins, for some odd reason. There's probably some underlying issues with Sy that isn't fully explored, but the whole point of this movie is Sy's obsession with this family.
The wife, Nina, drops off some photos of her son's, Jake, birthday party, and Sy makes an extra copy for himself. What does he do with this extra copy? He glues them to his wall, which is what he's been doing for the past 10 years. This really is a long term obsession.
When Sy isn't at work just waiting for Nina or her husband William to drop off pictures of themselves, he follows them around and "conviently" bumps into them. They start to think something is up with this Sy dude.
Now, Sy is obsessed with them because he think they are the perfect American family, but this isn't so. Nina and William fight every night, William works a lot at some company that he owns, and he doesn't spend any time with Nina or Jake.
Then a really big bombshell hits Sy.
This chick named Maya brings in some photos and while looking through them, because he thought she looked familiar, sees that she is carrying on with an affair with William. Sy is devestated and wants to bring this to the attention of Nina, so he mixes in Maya's photo's with some of Nina's and, sure enough, Nina noticed. But she doesn't mention it to William, which baffles Sy, who is stalking them outside their house.
Things really go bad for Sy when his boss, played by Gary Cole, who was the imfamous Lumburgh in "Office Space", tells Sy he's fired because Bill, the boss, noticed that a lot of extra pictures are missing. So Sy gets revenge his own way: take pictures of Bill's daughter playing in Bill's yard. Then drop off the pictures right there at Sav-Mart.
This freaks Bill out and he calls Van Der Beek (Fuck it, you know who I mean), and Van Der Zee Beek investigates Sy.
Meanwhile, Sy followed William to work, where he left eary with Maya and checked into a hotel to get it on. Sy also checks in, on the same floor as them, tricks Maya into opening the door, and, at knife point, makes them pose, naked and having sex, while Sy takes pictures.
The cops bust into Sy's apartment, finds the collage of The Yorkins and decide to warn them. Nina finds out that William is at a hotel with Maya and the cops rush over, but Sy finished up quickly and is trying to escape from the hotel. Of course we learn from the beginning that he still gets caught but you still kinda feel the need to root for him to escape.
In case you're wondering, he didn't hurt or kill Maya or William, just left them something to think about. And after talking to Van Der Beezee, he looks at the pictures he took, which leads to a baffling ending.
All the pictures were pictures of the curtains, bathroom sink, bed, dresser, etc...
So either this tells us the whole thing was in his head, he pretended to take pictures of William and Maya, or he's just really lousy at taking pictures, which would be ironic...don't ya think?
Upon learning who not only wrote but directed this movie, I was very impressed with the photography. Like I said, it might have something to do with the fact this movie IS about photography and it wouldn't say much for this movie if the photography was crappy and there wasn't good lighting and whatnot. And Robin Williams is very, very creepy in this movie, which means he was freakin awesome. I thought the movie was kind of slow, but really it's just building up and building up throughout the movie. Plus you learn a lot about the one hour photo business.
Oh, and according to this movie, it's ok to take nude photo's of yourself or of someone else, as long as there's no child porno or animal porn or cruelty. Which makes me a happy man!! I'm grabbing my camera, going to my girlfriend's house, and taking some pictures!!!
3 stars.
"One Hour Photo" on IMDb.com:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0265459/