Volume CXXXII, Number 2 September 20, 2002 f

Robin Williams is good, no joke
MONICA GUZMAN
STAFF WRITER

The scariest things in life are the things we can't understand. It's a basic psychological fact. So the scariest films, the aptly-named "psychological thrillers," are that scary precisely because they thrust these things at you with no mercy, taking over your mind and leaving no room for escape. This kind of film paralyzes you into submission. And what you submit to is its ugly perspective on the world.

This is why One Hour Photo is one of the scariest movies you will ever see. It forces you to live, for two hours, in a life that embodies one of our greatest, most secret fears: the fear of being alone.

This is the life of Seymour Parrish (Robin Williams), a polite, awkward photo lab employee. He goes home to an empty home with one chair at the kitchen table. The only time he ever talks to anyone is when he takes their print orders over the counter. It's a very mechanical social connection.

He can get far more personal, and no one ever seems to notice. Every time he develops pictures, he is free to invade people's lives, to break in to their cherished moments. And so he follows the lives of the Yorkins, a family he admires and wishes he had. Their pictures are the only things that color his life-he's kept a print of every one they've ever developed up on his wall.
This is obviously freaky. But here, Sy is so real that you almost understand it. You pity him. When Sy violently takes a family trouble into his own hands, he becomes disgusting to you, as disgusting as he must feel to himself. You can't imagine anyone being that far gone, and even the thought of such a person trying so desperately to fill his sad, empty life chills you.
So, tell me...would you have picked Robin Williams to play this part? The answer is hell no. But the guy, always full of surprises, did an amazing job bringing Sy to life. He's been getting deeper and deeper into the dark side recently (Death to Smoochy, Insomnia), and now he's hit the very core of disturbed and reached the vein through which all that is creepy flows. Not what you'd expect from Mrs. Doubtfire, but he's just that good of an actor.
As for directing, it's pretty safe to say Mike Romanek, the renowned music video director (Madonna's "Bedtime Story", for example), has landed on the big screen. Each scene of this film is calibrated to the music with eerie precision -a twisted mix of superficial shopping center jingles and the sinister heartbeats of reality. He's brought all his music video talents to the project, not to mention the fact that he also wrote the sharp, understated screenplay.
But the visuals-oh, the visuals! Every location and every shot breathes with life and makes you shudder just to look at it. Everything in Sy's world is bright and white, yet empty; his solitude is in the spotlight. After all, it's solitude that's the real villain here. It infects every setting he walks into-the Sav-Mart shopping center where he works, his home, the hotel he stays in, the police station.

The camera makes the spaces seem to reject him, turn him away, like society always has. Not even his own house-his own workplace-is his friend. He is truly alone. It becomes so clear as you watch that I would call this the greatest mood cinematography I've ever seen.

The film's greatest effect is its ability to penetrate you, to make you cringe into yourself. The first shot of a film is one of the most important shots in a movie. Here, that first shot defines the rest of the film. It's a large white sterile camera in an empty white sterile room. And it's looking right at you. You sit and wait to see what it's pointing at, or what the next shot will be. But the camera keeps its inhuman eye fixed on you. And pretty soon, you become aware. You become afraid. It's got you where it wants you. And it won't let go.