One Hour Photo Movie Review 432

One Hour Photo is a 2002 thriller directed by Mark Romanek and starring Robin Williams and Gary Cole.

Sy Parrish(Williams) is a middle aged guy who works at SavMart in the photo developing booth(hence the movie title). He is a sad person who lives for his job and when he goes home and the end of the day, he is alone. He doesn't have anyone. The only thing that makes him happy is looking at photographs of other people's lives. He is interested in one family in particular. The wife is Nina(Connie Nielsen), the husband is Will(Michael Vartin) and they have a son Jake. Their ideal family life makes Sy wish that he could be part of something like that. He tries to talk to them, but he is not great at communicating with other people due to his shyness.

He talks to Nina when she comes in to his booth and she finds out that he leads a very lonely life.
Sy gets in to trouble at work with his boss Bill(Cole) and he ends up getting fired. Everything that he has is slipping away from him. He looks through photos of Will and realises that he is having an affair. He is furious at Will for what he is doing to his wife and child. He wants Nina to find out so he puts some incriminating photos into her bundle of photos and he hopes that she will see what Will has been up to behind her back.

Unfortunately, Sy becomes obsessed with the family unit and he is pissed at Will. He follows him around. He also takes photos of Bill's daughter and sends them to him. He gets found out and the cops want to know what he is up to. His apartment is covered in photographs of the family. He goes t a hotel and threatens Will and the woman that he is having sex with. He takes nude photos of them.
The cops are on the way to get him. He tries to escape but he is caught. Sy seems confused as to why he is in trouble. He talks to the detective and it comes out that something bad happened to Sy as a child and that is why he is the way he is. The movie ends with a picture of Sy with the family which is all in his head.

This is a very good film. I really like the character of Sy. I feel that he is a sympathetic character in one sense and a predator in another. I felt sorry for him because his life is so empty and sad. The real message of this film is that he was a sad guy who saw something in the family that he wanted for himself. Unfortunately, he couldn't try and fix his own life instead of interfering in theirs. He just became obsessed with what he saw as the ideal family and when Will was having an affair, he took it personally. I liked Williams in this. I thought that he looked and played the part of the lonely man very well and this is a thriller that I would recommend. I will give it a 7/10.