Barnes & Noble

Robin Williams, essaying the latest in a series of dark characterizations, delivers his most bone-chilling performance to date in this superior thriller, a minor masterpiece of eerie mood and rising suspense. Williams portrays a lonely, obsessive one-hour photo clerk who has spent years living vicariously through an attractive suburban family whose pictures adorn his living-room wall. To him, the mother (Connie Neilson), father (Michael Vartan), and young son (newcomer Dylan Walsh), whose lives he monitors through the photos he processes for them, has always represented familial perfection. When sordid real-life events blur the idyllic images he has fixed in his mind, this unassuming but unbalanced man finally snaps. Writer-director Mark Romanek, previously known for his music videos, displays a strong Stanley Kubrick influence, not only in the emotional restraint and pacing of his sequences but also in the cinematography and production design. One Hour Photo has a dreamlike quality, particularly in those scenes taking place in the department store where Williams’s character works. But Romanek’s virtuoso visuals would have gone for naught had his star not invested his role with such creepy conviction: Williams pulls off a nearly impossible trick by making his dangerously psychotic photo clerk a reasonably sympathetic character. That, ultimately, is why the film succeeds -- and it's why you’ll be drawn back to the movie again and again. Romanek and Williams provide a feature-length commentary for the DVD, which also sports several "making-of" featurettes. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Funnyman Robin Williams steps out of character in this tense, low-key thriller that marked the feature-film directorial debut of music video veteran Mark Romanek. Semour "Sy" Parrish (Williams) runs the photo processing department at a large discount store; Sy is dedicated to his job, and takes great pride in his work. Sy's favorite customers are Nina and Will Yorkin (Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan), an attractive and cheerful young couple with a nine-year-old boy, Jake (Dylan Smith). Sy dotes on the Yorkins and their son whenever they drop off film to be processed -- something they've been doing quite often ever since Jake was born -- and Nina and Will are indulgent of Sy's attentions, regarding his as a harmless eccentric. What the Yorkins don't know is Sy is a desperately lonely man with no real life of his own, and he's been obsessively making copies of their photos, for years, imagining himself to be "Uncle Sy", a member of the family. Sy's tenuous hold on reality begins to collapse when he develops a roll of film brought in by a new customer that suggests Will has been unfaithful to Nina; the notion that his ideal family may be falling apart is troubling enough for Sy, and when he loses his job, Sy reaches the breaking point. One Hour Photo was screened in competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Mark Deming

Chicago Sun-Times

1/2
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. Roger Ebert

Hollywood Reporter

An absorbing and unsettling psychological drama. Duane Byrge

Product Details

• UPC: 024543066248
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Presentation: Pan & Scan
• Sound: Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français, Español
• Subtitles: English, Español
• Time: 1:36:00
• Sales Rank: 44,534

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