bles0932 Not exactly what I was thinking when I first began to watch this film. Robin Williams has always played funny man roles in his films. But not this one. It will surprise you and it will amaze you. Even in the film Insomnia his role was totally unexpected,but you will appreciate.

mattiasflgrtll6 One hour photo; referring to the time it usually takes for the photo developer Sy Parrish to get his customers' pictures printed. Nowadays in the digital age, people rarely need to go to a photo developer. They still exist of course, but are not as popular as they used to be. Even at this time however, digital was starting to take its place. Bad news for Sy, as the slightest suggestion that the family he often develops photos for might go digital frightens him...This movie completely blew me away. Robin Williams plays a character so nerve-wreckingly creepy, strange and pitiful that he gets under your skin so much he becomes real. That's some of my favorite kind of characters, where they feel so real that they almost start existing. I have no words for how layered his performance was. It would be so easy to just make a character straight-up creepy only, but the fact that you want to root for him even though you're worried at the same time he'll finally snap speaks volumes for how much he embraces this character. Sy is not a bad person, but he's still dangerous. He's compassionate, but also oddly disconnective. The Yorkin family (well, Nina and Jakob at least) like him, but they are not aware of just how much Sy really loves them, not only as customers, but like they were his own family members. The only times they get an idea of that is when he "jokily" refers to himself as Uncle Sy. When he does start to get a little too close to them, director/writer of this movie conveys it so subtly how they are pleased to see him, but at the same time they know something isn't quite right. Will Yorkin notices something odd about him right away, but doesn't think too much of him outside of just a "stranger". This is the core of the movie, the struggle of Sy trying to get something he can't have. It's almost immediately obvious he's close to them, but it's not enough. He wants to be more than just a nice familiar face. We as the audience know how easily he can break loose of any logical thought and restraint, which he does throughout but it happens to slowly and methodically we feel constant shivers long before the movie is over.Gary Cole is also good and kinda funny as his frustrated boss Bill Owens. All of the performances range from good to excellent, but if it wasn't for Williams the movie wouldn't have as much meaning as it does. It makes you think about how dangerous loneliness can be, how important support from family or friends is. We don't want to end up like Sy, but we strongly pity people who turn out that way.

Dan1863Sickles I remember enjoying this movie when it first came out fifteen years ago, mainly because Connie Nielsen was so sensationally sexy and because it was fun to see smarmy Robin Williams take a turn as a crazed stalker. But when I bought the DVD from Amazon the other day for about two dollars, I was disappointed by a lot of flaws I didn't notice in the theater.The visuals in this movie are really irritating. Every single store, home, and interior looks like it's a vacuum, a space station laboratory under bright lights where not even a microbe could survive. Is this supposed to mean something? To me it meant the whole story was fake.It really irritated me that, as other reviewers have pointed out, all the photos are perfectly staged and arranged even though the tiny family clearly wouldn't have time to take them and then happily jump into the picture. It was even more aggravating when the young husband was cheating on the sly. Why on earth would anyone cheat on Connie Nielsen? And why would this boring, nothing guy and his secret girl (a scrumptious Erin Daniels, completely wasted in a thankless part) have dozens and dozens of photos documenting every kiss? Robin Williams plays a guy who is timid, shy, and not at all hip to the street. But all of a sudden he's like J.J. Gittes in CHINATOWN, a sleuth who can trail the bad guys all over town and surprise them wherever they try to hide! Also, how did a pitiful clown in a box store earn enough money for that huge apartment with expensive lighting? But the real flaw in this movie is the hidden subtext, the prudery and the sexual repression. Ultimately, Sy the Photo Guy is a surrogate for the Catholic Church, legislating sexual desire while boiling over with uncontrollable appetites himself. The way he takes vengeance at the end reflects not so much a horror at immorality as a disgust with the human body itself. The writer/director is from Chicago, and evidently he's some kind of blue-collar ethnic Catholic with a primitive horror of adult sexuality. This movie really has more in common with STUDS LONIGAN than CHINATOWN. And I don't mean that as a compliment!

adonis98-743-186503 A mentally unstable photo developer begins to attack a middle-class family after his obsession with them becomes more sick and disturbing than any of them could imagine. One Hour Photo is one of those films that perfectly captures the sense of a true thriller without the over the top gore or the over the top sex scenes between stupid teens it's actually an impressive and well made thriller with Robin Williams easily steal the show he has always been known as a comedian but with this movie right here? He goes to a darker place that personally suits him quite well. Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan are quite good too but their characters are not as close in terms of performance standards like Williams was. Also i gotta say the ending was so freaking clever and it showed how clever Seymour Parrish actually was and sure he was caught but what he did to those cops just seriously humiliated them completely plus the reason why he is doing what he is doing makes perfect sense cause of his early problems threw his childhood years. Overall One Hour Photo is a stunning, creepy and terrific thriller that will win you over thanks to a terrific and terrifying performance by the great and late Robin Williams (10/10)