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Movies / Upcoming / One Hour Photo
One Hour Photo

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One Hour Photo (2002)

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Reviews Counted:190

Fresh:155

Rotten:35

Average Rating:7.1/10

Consensus: Robin Williams is every effective in this creepy thriller.

Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins

Genre: Dramas

US Box Office: $31,469,714

Synopsis: Viewed through our photographs, it would seem we have lived a joyous, leisurely existence. Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), who makes this observation, adversely leads a lonely life, operating a photo... Viewed through our photographs, it would seem we have lived a joyous, leisurely existence. Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), who makes this observation, adversely leads a lonely life, operating a photo lab in a SavMart department store. He escapes his dreary reality through the family photos of Nancy Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) and her family. His admiration of the Yorkins becomes an obsession, as he fashions himself as Uncle Sy to little Jake (Dylan Smith). Sy's judgment becomes impaired by his unhealthy interest, causing him to lose his job of 11 years. As his final day approaches, Sy develops photographs revealing an indiscretion on the part of Mr. Yorkin (Michael Vartan). The unstable Sy now develops a disturbing, calculated plan to instill family values to the Yorkin clan. Much of ONE HOUR PHOTO takes place inside a department store similar to a Wal-Mart, bordered in an icy blue. This cold atmosphere creates a solitary framework for the disturbed photo developer Sy Parrish, played with a melancholic detachment by Williams, working here against type. Director Mark Romanek (STATIC) has created a thriller with little violence. Instead, it is permeated with an uncomfortable fear emanating from its damaged protagonist. [More]

Starring: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole

Starring: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole, Eriq La Salle, Dylan Smith, Nick Searcy

Director: Mark Romanek

Director: Mark Romanek
Screenwriter: Mark Romanek
Producer: Christine Vachon, Stanley J. Wlodkowski, Pamela Koffler
Composer: Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

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Reviews for One Hour Photo

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

In a story so reliant on detail as the engine for character action, it’s frustrating and annoying to see the film spiral down the gurgler because of a few (but crucial) lapses of attention to detail.

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
10/18/08
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Williams gives quite a performance. It's as if he's turned himself into a negative of his usual chipper self.

Full Review Source: Sydney Morning Herald | comment Comment
03/07/03
Sandra Hall
Sandra Hall
Sydney Morning Herald
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | comment Comment
09/08/09
Kit Bowen
Kit Bowen
Hollywood.com

Call it an exercise in threat management, free with the purchase of a photo album--or a movie ticket.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
08/24/09
Rob Nelson
Rob Nelson
L.A. Weekly

This is a brilliant, incredibly directed film with excellent performances all around from Nielsen, and Williams who deserves an Oscar nod.

Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | comment Comment
04/29/09
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed

This immaculately made first feature from noted musicvid and commercials director Mark Romanek provides Robin Williams with one of his creepiest, atypical roles, and the comic star responds with an unusually restrained performance...

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
03/27/09
Todd McCarthy
Todd McCarthy
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Robin Williams creates a character who earns our revulsion--and somehow also our sympathy.

Full Review Source: Bangor Daily News (Maine) | comment Comment
08/05/07
Christopher Smith
Christopher Smith
Bangor Daily News (Maine)

Sy is a complete character with a physicality, inner monologue and motivation that we haven't seen from Mr. Williams in a long time. And it's a pleasure to watch.

Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | comment Comment
07/14/07
Joe Lozito
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound

Robin Williams' good work in contained in an uneven film, whose first half is an intriguing chronicle of urban alienation, but second part deteriorates into a presposterous thriller with a subplot of stalking and revenge--not unlike Fatal Attraction

Full Review Source: Screendaily | comment Comment
12/24/06
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
Screendaily

It has arresting things to say about how the family photo is used less to record than to project, and how far that projection can be from the truth.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/26/06
Time Out

This story begs for a harder focus, the kind of thing Stanley Kubrick was always good at, at least until he got a little too focused. What saves the film is Robin Williams in a very atypical role.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Ron Wells
Ron Wells
Film Threat

This is not the Robin Williams you are used to seeing.

Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs | comment Comment
09/30/05
Scott Nash
Scott Nash
Three Movie Buffs

What brings the film to a level beyond is Williams's superb performance and, in turn, Romanek's carefully calibrated direction.

Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | comment Comment
01/07/05
Michael Dequina
Michael Dequina
TheMovieReport.com

A music video is like espresso: a lot of visual power compressed into five minutes. A movie needs to know something of the rhythms of everyday life, or else the audience get dizzy and exhausted.

Full Review Source: Looking Closer | comment Comment
12/06/04
Jeffrey Overstreet
Jeffrey Overstreet
Looking Closer

This isn't the Williams of Mrs. Doubtfire or, thank heavens, Jack or What Dreams May Come.

Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | comment Comment
06/25/04
Judith Egerton
Judith Egerton
Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)

Robin Williams has mastered the essence of the overlooked man. Quite simply, it is a fantastic move for his career.

Full Review Source: FilmStew.com | comment Comment
02/01/04
Susan Michals
Susan Michals
FilmStew.com

Williams is at his very best ...

Full Review Source: Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) | comment Comment
01/06/04
Greg Maki
Greg Maki
Star-Democrat (Easton, MD)

This is the best and boldest performance of Williams' career.

Full Review Source: State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL) | comment Comment
06/26/03
Nick Rogers
Nick Rogers
State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

It's the mark of a good thriller when we never know quite when to relax. This movie has several witty and visually adept sequences which caught me completely off guard, and has me still thinking about them.

Full Review Source: Palo Alto Weekly | comment Comment
05/20/03
Jim Shelby
Jim Shelby
Palo Alto Weekly

Mark Romanek's film is both intriguing and unsettling, inviting the viewer to become a voyeur, like Sy, inspecting the minutae of the lives of others.

Full Review Source: Eye for Film | comment Comment
05/10/03
Amber Wilkinson
Amber Wilkinson
Eye for Film
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >> >|
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Latest News for One Hour Photo

December 03, 2008: Mark Romanek to Direct Alex Garland's Never Let Me Go Opens in new window
Prolific commercial and music video director Mark Romanek, who most recently directed One Hour Photo in 2002, will helm Alex Garland's Never Let Me Go, the film adaptation of... More...

February 09, 2007: Mark Romanek to Direct New "Wolf Man"
We mentioned this story a while back, I believe, but now we have some solid progress, so here we go again: Universal is hot to remake "The Wolf Man," which would... More...

October 05, 2006: Critical Consensus: "Departed" Is Best Reviewed Wide Release of 2006
This week at the movies, we've got cops and robbers in Boston ("The Departed," starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon), chainsaw massacres in Texas... More...

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