 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
One Hour Photo
- Review Date: April 27, 2003
- R
- Genre: Thriller
- 2002
Common Sense Media says
Intensely scary thriller; not for every teen.
Parents say
QUALITY
Kids say
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that this is an intensely scary thriller with severe peril (though not graphic), nudity, and sexual references and situations, including adultery and child molestation.
What's the story?
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. What captures Sy's attention is the peek inside lives of vibrancy, intimacy, connection, warmth, and affection. And the family that seems most perfect to him is Will and Nina Yorkin and their 9-year-old son, Jake. Inside the Yorkin house, though, Will accuses Nina of wanting her life to be like the pictures she looks at in magazines. Nina accuses Will of neglecting Jake and being distant from her. Another customer's photo order gives Sy evidence that Will Yorkin does not appreciate his family. And Sy's boss (Gary Cole) fires him for making hundreds of prints that are unaccounted for. 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. One Hour Photo begins with Sy having his mug shot taken in a police station. 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.
Is it any good?
Writer/director Mark Romanek shows Sy and his small corner of the cavernous SaveMart in the blandest of neutral colors with cool undertones. 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 handles mood and tone well, but the result is that the movie is too much about images and surfaces, more artificial itself than the artificiality it attempts to depict. It's not about anything real. It's about what Romanek imagines middle America to be like.
The attraction of the material for Williams is obvious, too. The utterly repressed character is the other end of the scale from his own personality and his best-known performances. But inside every comedian is a lot of hostility, and Williams uses his well to create both pathos and menace. Overall, the movie's logical lapses, odd conclusion, and too-easy explanation keep it from being completely successful. Like Sy, Romanek seems to have lost the boundaries between the observer and the image.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about the role that photographs play in their own lives. Would someone looking at your family's photographs get an accurate picture of your family? They could also talk about whether we do enough to pay attention to people who are less fortunate and may be lonely.
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- All members
- Parents
- Teens & kids
AGE
Not for kids.
The ending was a "Huh?" moment, but overall this was a great movie.
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AGE
Completely shocked
Horribly disappointed in Robin Williams. What a depressing, disgusting movie with nothing good to say about it at all. A graphic sexual scene and twisted morality and family interaction. Please don't support this type of "entertainment"!
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AGE
mighty be boring to everyone but not me
this movie makes me want to buy a camrea but i like it
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AGE
Eerie
Robin Williams deserved an oscar nod for this creepy shadowy photo clerk. This film is great at revealing things slowly, letting revelations in the story seem natural, but still shocking.
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AGE
Don't do it
I really like Robin Williams. Why in the world did he agree to this senseless movie is beyond me. It has to be his first bad film. It is slow to start and comes up on the wrong side of a lot of moral issues. What a waste.
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AGE
This movie is more of a psychological thriller than a bloody thriller. I would not recommend this movie for children to see, not for reasons of inappropriate content, but because of concepts that may be beyond them. This movie overall is not very entertaining, it is disconcerting at times, but the storyline is very slow and the ending does tie things up. I was left confused and with questions at the end of the movie.
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| Studio: | Fox Searchlight |
| Director: | Mark Romanek |
| Cast: | Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Robin Williams |
| Genre: | Thriller |
| Run time: | 96 minutes |
| Theatrical release date: | September 13, 2002 |
| DVD release date: | May 20, 2003 |
| MPAA rating: | R |
| MPAA explanation: | sexual content and language |
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