Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

One Hour Photo (2002)

Director: Mark Romanek

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Sy Parrish (Williams), a mild-mannered photo booth op, gets rather too attached to some of his regular customers, a young couple (Nielsen and Vartan) and their son, making copies of their 24-sets and pasting them all over his apartment. His prurience disrupts the otherwise narcissistic loop of private-use photo production, and before you can say 'Manhunter' he's making the Peeping Tom movie journey from spectator to participant, and attracting unwelcome police attention. The film is at its best before the suspense narrative kicks in. 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. That Parrish buys into the myth is his tragedy. The story is told more or less from his point of view. Consequently, the family members are photographed and directed as if they're in an advert or a professionally lit home video - a rewarding strategy, until we're required to care about them.

Author: HKM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.