a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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One Hour Photo walks like an innovative art film, talks like an innovative art film, and above all, looks like an innovative art film. Critics are falling over each other to praise its lead performance by Robin Williams and its inventive camerawork. Some are drawing parallels to Stanley Kubrick.
In my opinion, all of this hype is rather exaggerated. It’s certainly a solid debut from a creative director. Its a story resonates with important insights about telling the truth and the problem with forcing the truth on other people. It also boasts a good… but not award-worthy… performance from Robin Williams.
Regarding Robin: in this film he settles comfortably into the role of a quirky, quiet, slightly delusional character just as he has done in before in his more serious roles. Those who say this is the first time he has played a restrained, stoic character have forgotten Awakenings. Those who think his dark, moody, on-the-verge-of-exploding moments here are revolutionary have forgotten the darker edge of Williams’ performance as Perry in The Fisher King. Sure, he’s very good in the part of Sy. But the character of Sy, if you think about it, isn’t THAT complicated a part to play. Most of the impact of the performance comes from the audience’s expectation of ROBIN WILLIAMS to start acting zany. They’re impressed that he’s NOT doing something.
Sy is a photo-lab worker who is lonely and bored. The isolated, exaggeratedly cold environment of his shopping center counter would drive anyone half crazy. The only color and warmth in his life comes from the photos he develops each day. One family in particular–the Yorkins–appeals to him. They seem to have it all, judging from their obsession with photographing themselves being happy and traditional. Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen, in the film’s only truly surprising performance) is drop-dead gorgeous, and her husband and child seem to get their clothes from the same expensive catalog that she does. They’re too good to be true.
Anybody who has paid any attention to American movies in the last, oh, thirty years knows full well that American families are, in fact, never happy. They’re all dysfunctional powder kegs waiting to blow. (Worse, most movies portray that eventual dissolution as a good thing, instead of telling the harder story about reaching for the good of resilience and commitment.) Sure enough, the Yorkins are hiding awful secrets behind those smiles.
And when lonely, delusional Sy finds out about the secrets, he sees the last sacred thing in his world desecrated. And he sets out to punish the one responsible.
It’s a good premise that Romanek is working with. Sy is a compelling central character because his madness is, actually, not madness. It makes sense. He looks around and sees no justice in the world, so he determines to bring it about himself. I can understand that.
How many times have you wanted to march over to the neighbors’ house and tell them off for the way they talk to each other? How often do we see principled people rising up in pious anger to try and force a moral ideal upon the world? It’s easy to agree with Sy’s sentiments, but his method is truly frightening. It’s only a few steps up from road rage.
There are other ways to bring about change. Granted, those methods require restraint, self-control, patience, and love. We are called to speak the truth, as Sy does… but we are called to speak it in love.
I was impressed with Romanek’s sound moral vision for the film. He clearly sees the importance of a healthy family, and mourns the all-too-common sins that so often destroy marriages and childhoods. He sees further, to the trouble we bring upon ourselves and others when we name ourselves agents of judgment. And he manages to explore all of these issues without preaching or drawing conclusions for us. He follows the first rule of good artmaking: he shows instead of telling. We are left to sort out our feelings about Sy on our own.
Unfortunately, there’s a problem with how he shows us. Romanek is very very talented as a visual artist. And he can’t rein in his own abilities.He robs us of the suspense, the emotion, and the chance to ponder the goings-on by distracting us with a kaleidoscope of camera tricks and a bunch of visual references to Kubrick. I was reminded of The Cell, a movie that was so visually schizophrenic it gave me a headache. His visual trickery costs the film precious time and energy, which could have been used to supply more information about the family. As a result, they remain disappointingly “undeveloped.” (Really, I’m not TRYING to use photographic terminology.)
The Kubrick-isms… from the opening shot of the camera eye (I expected it to say “Hello, Sy…”) to this year’s second “Eyes Pried Open” recreation (after Minority Report)… become tiresome early on.
Several times we move slowly across a room, zooming in on Sy’s quiet, ponderous face, sensing the storm inside that short-haired cranium. I kept expecting the head to explode in a bloody fireworks display. Guess what…it does, sorta.
Romanek is new to feature films. He’s used to filming music videos and commercials, and it shows. A music video is like espresso: you want a lot of visual power compressed into five minutes. A movie, on the other hand, needs to know something of the rhythms of everyday life, or else the audience is likely to get dizzy and exhausted.
There is one scene in the film that jumped out at me and said This is the right tone. Sy goes out to watch the boy at practice and then walks him partway home. We know he’s not sexually attracted to the boy. But we’re not sure what he plans to do. The restraint shown in the visuals here is impressive. Suspense rises because Romanek takes his time and lets us guess what might be about to happen. Then, when Sy makes a simple, everyday gesture, it causes us to jump in our seats. (A similar moment takes place during a walk through the snow in this year’s French thriller Time Out… but there, the whole movie maintained a delicate tone of perfect tension.)
If Romanek uses his truly brilliant visual sense with more restraint in the future, parsing out his “clever” shots more sparingly, he may have a fascinating career in the making.
