![]() ![]() This starts out subtle with Sy giving Jake a free camera for his birthday, but it grows into something very scary as he gets more and more attached. He begins to see himself as a member of their family. This sounds wholesome, but Sy develops an obsession with the Yorkins. As a result, Sy has witnessed little moments of their lives for the past few years. Nina (Connie Nielsen) and her son Jake (Dylan Smith) are in the store frequently to get film developed. He's been doing this work for over a decade and he's come to know some of the regulars, including the Yorkin family. His entire life revolves around his job printing pictures at a local SavMart. The film centers on Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), or "Sy the Photo Guy" to the locals. It's been several years since I last saw the movie and with its Blu-ray release, it was a good time to check it out once more. There was something about it that was disturbing enough to make me simultaneously love it and not want to watch it again for a little while. There are some films that stick with you long after you've first watched them. Like Sy, Romanek seems to have lost the boundaries between the observer and the image.Blu-ray released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Overall, the movie's logical lapses, odd conclusion, and too-easy explanation keep it from being completely successful. But inside every comedian is a lot of hostility, and Williams uses his well to create both pathos and menace. The utterly repressed character is the other end of the scale from his own personality and his best-known performances. The attraction of the material for Williams is obvious, too. The Yorkins, in person and in the photos meticulously color-balanced by Sy, are shown in warm, bright, vivid colors, while everything about Sy is beige, even his hair. Romanek shows Sy and his small corner of the cavernous SaveMart in the blandest of neutral colors with cool undertones. It's about what Romanek imagines middle America to be like. Writer/director Mark Romanek handles mood and tone well, but the film ends up being too much about images and surfaces, more artificial itself than the artificiality it attempts to depict. A detective tells him that they have developed his pictures and they are "not pretty." So we know from the beginning that something bad will happen. One Hour Photo begins with Sy having his mug shot taken in a police station. He dreams of walking down endless, colorless, empty aisles at SaveMart, the bare shelves rising behind him like the wings of an avenging angel and his eyes spurting dark red blood. And Sy's boss (Gary Cole) fires him for making hundreds of prints that are unaccounted for. Another customer's photo order gives Sy evidence that Will Yorkin does not appreciate his family. Nina accuses Will of neglecting Jake and being distant from her. Inside the Yorkin house, though, Will accuses Nina of wanting her life to be like the pictures she looks at in magazines. And the family that seems most perfect to him is Will and Nina Yorkin and their 9-year-old son, Jake. ![]() ![]() What captures Sy's attention is the peek inside lives of vibrancy, intimacy, connection, warmth, and affection. Sy Parrish ( Robin Williams) cares deeply about making sure that the snapshots he develops at the SaveMart are as perfect as the family life he dreams that they represent. ![]()
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