One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo tells the story of Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), a lonely photo lab technician who grows fond and obsessive towards a particular family by developing their photos over a certain course of time. And the film is an attempt to understand this liking and attraction that Sy has on the Yorkins via layers of revelations about his character.

With photos as the tangible theme, we see the presence of pictures and cameras everywhere. The way the screenplay has used one single photo to tell us that Sy has entered the family circle without them realizing it was brilliant! There's even an extremely well shot and lit to detail photo finishing process that the movie has walked us through. And much like the process itself, the plot gradually yet steadily bloomed the character of Sy Parrish!

Sy Parrish will go down in history as one of the most fleshed out characters ever to appear in motion pictures! The story began with a hint that he has committed a serious crime, but we're left to wonder what has transpired. From then on, we follow our protagonist into his daily life and routine, including his characteristics and the types of customers he deals with. One can definitely tell he is a compactly passionate man about his job. However, we're unsure about his fascination behind the Yorkins; it could be good or bad. He lives alone, with wall full of the Yorkins' photos and actual stalking sessions! But as we learn more and more about Sy until the finale, we discover his true intentions and where he's coming from. Although his behaviour has been odd, all he wanted was to have a family. His terrible past of child pornography has led to an absence of true family love, and Sy's yearning for it was all the story's about. He couldn't accept the fact that a man who has everything would take it all for granted and throw it all away for an illicit act of extramarital affair, hence the drastic measure.

Like aforementioned, the writing's terrific! Expositions were non-existent! If at all we needed to know anything crucial about the story or characters, it's solely explained either using visuals, smooth conversations or subtle hints. The screenplay had a clear flow of events, with brilliant reversals, scenes continuation and revelations of information back to back! As rightfully so, the situations and circumstances escalated to become worse and worse as the runtime progressed, boiling up to a nail-biting climax! Even if we do not exactly understand why he ended up in the hotel room to take pictures instead, his action reflected his character at the end of the day when we figured he didn't shoot anything dirty at all.

Aside the amazing penmanship, without Robin Williams' expert work of art, the character of Sy Parrish wouldn't have come alive! Something about his looks and the way he speaks gives chills! Robin Williams once again proved how to impress with subtle and simple yet nuanced and strong acting performance!

For a feature about cameras and photos, director Mark Romanek made sure the cinematography was pristine! The clinical tone, symmetry and colours were just wow! Watch out for the immaculately captured running sequence! Not to forget, the background score was beautifully haunting as well.