Independent Films, Film Profiles

One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo is a 2002 American psychological thriller, written and directed by Mark Romanek and starring Robin Williams. Fox Searchlight Pictures distributed the movie in the United States, and it also starred Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole, and Eriq La Salle. Williams won a Saturn Award for Best Actor (2003) for his work in the film.Williams stars as Seymour "Sy" Parrish, a mini-lab photo tech at SavMart's one-hour photo developing clinic in suburban Los Angeles, where he leads a depressing, solitary life. Every day he labors to ensure his customers get the best quality photos possible; his life is truly his work, for he has no one and nothing to go home to at the end of each day except only his pet gerbil. Among his customers are the Yorkin family, made up of husband Will (Vartan), wife Nina (Nielsen), and their only child Jake (Dylan Smith). Sy has done their photos for years and, over time, has developed an obsession with the family; he idolizes their happiness and affluence, memorizes every personal detail about them that he can learn, and finally begins to stalk them. During his lunch break, he secretly makes his own copies of the Yorkins' photos from the film negatives and then puts them on a wall in his apartment. Most of all, he fantasizes about being a member of their family, and sharing in the love he assumes they must feel. However, he is painfully shy, and his attempts to become closer to the family are gently rebuffed.Sy discovers that Will is having an affair, and his idyllic conception of the Yorkins as the 'perfect' family is shattered. He comes to hate and envy Will, who has everything Sy longs for, yet doesn't seem to care. Sy soon finds himself in trouble with his boss, SavMart manager Bill Owens (Cole), first for an outburst in the store with the mini-lab's service technician, taking extended lunch breaks, then for the manager's discovery that Sy has been making unaccounted photo copies, and giving away a disposable camera to Jake for his birthday. After being fired for this, Sy stalks and takes many pictures of Owens' young daughter, leading to a police report against him. While detectives Van Der Zee and Outerbridge (played by La Salle and Clark Gregg) are discovering Sy's obsession, he confronts Will and his mistress, Maya (Erin Daniels), while they are having sex in their hotel room, with a knife and a camera, and forces the lovers to pose naked while he takes pictures. Throughout the ordeal, Will's mistress panics and Sy reacts aggressively, but does not harm either of them. After this, as Sy just sits at the right edge of the bed in his hotel room, he then discovers that the police arrived in the hotel and tries to escape. The alarm sounds and Van Der Zee pursues him while Outerbridge discovers a tormented Will Yorkin and his mistress. As Sy tries to leave the hotel, he is finally arrested.In the movie's final scene, set in a police interrogation room, Van Der Zee asks Sy why he terrorized the Yorkins. Sy indirectly reveals that his father had made him do "sick, disgusting things that no kid should ever have to do". The implication, confirmed by Romanek, is that Sy's father exploited him for child pornography, and this accounts for his loneliness and his obsession with photography. Sy cannot understand why Will, as the perfect father, was determined to destroy his family. As the detective comes to understand him and prepares to take his confession, Sy asks for the pictures he made at the hotel, which the detective has described as 'evidence'. They appear to be only shots of household objects and interior furnishings he took on a separate roll after the incident in the hotel (possibly an allusion to his statement, earlier in the film, 'the little things are that which make up our lives').The film closes with a picture of the Yorkin family with Sy. Romanek claims in the DVD commentary that the picture is intended to symbolize an open ending; it is left up to the viewer to decide whether the picture only exists in Sy's mind or if the Yorkin family is grateful to him for having saved them by exposing Will's affair.