ONE HOUR PHOTO
Released: August 21, 2002
Robin Williams has been busy this year. There was the Danny DeVito directed and unfairly beaten at the boxoffice "Death To Smoochy" and his live stand up special for HBO. Add in his erie role in "Insomnia" with Al Pacino and you've got a pretty full year. With "One Hour Photo", Williams opts for the low key followup route rather than mimicing Pacino's flashy bomb "Simone". "One Hour Photo" is from director Mark Romanek, yet another director of music videos (Madonna, REM) to transfer over to Hollywood movies. Williams plays an employee of a one-hour photo lab becomes obsessed with a young suburban family. There's many ways the story could go from here and Romanek taunts the viewer before spilling the beans on the direction it eventually goes. Is it successful as a movie? Well, Williams is great as the almost invisible photo lab worker. His boss is played by Gary Cole who prepped for the role with 1999's "Office Space", only here he plays it straight, no laughs. The family Williams obsesses over is played by Michael Vartan and Connie Nielsen (Emperor Commodus' object of incestious affection sister from "Gladiator") with Dylan Smith as their Son. What happens with Williams character and his motivations will either shock you or seem oddly logical, depending on how you feel...
98 Minutes
Fox Searchlight/20th Century Fox