One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo is a psychological thriller about a man, Seymour 'Sy' Parrish (played by Robin Williams), who is a photo lab technician at a local department store. As a young boy, Sy was sexually abused involving pictures being taken of the incident. In the beginning however, he seems normal and content. Sy looks forward everyday to seeing his favorite and best costumers, the Yorkin family. The Yorkin family certainly seems like the perfect family. They are attractive, wealthy, and they love each other very much. Nina Yorkin, the mother of Jacob ‘Jake’ and wife of Will, is usually who drops off the family’s pictures to Sy. Though they interact as if Sy was an uncle to Jake, they share a semi-personal relationship at best. He takes his job very seriously and is very good at it. Sy is very friendly and outwardly seems very content while he’s at work and is respected and cared about very much by his coworker Yoshi. However, when Sy leaves work, his life becomes very despondent. He slips deeper into depression everyday that goes by. Sy’s personal life is completely lacking. He goes home after work to a very drab, sterile apartment and it becomes apparent that there is no one in Sy’s life at all; no family, no companion or friends whatsoever. Ironically, Sy’s refrigerator is eerily blank. In fact, there are no pictures in Sy’s apartment whatsoever… except for one collage that occupies an entire wall. The collage is a very disturbing anthology of pictures of the Yorkin family over a period of several years. Sy sees the Yorkin family as having it all and obsesses over them. He eventually finds out that Will has been having an affair with a coworker and becomes psychotic. His obsession elevates beyond just thoughts and rises to the point of actions. He catches Will with his mistress in a hotel room, holds them at knifepoint, then takes pictures while forcing them to do sexual acts.

Robin William’s character does a very good job at accurately portraying an individual who suffers from, amongst other disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder. At his job, Sy shows himself to be somewhat anal retentive in the way he does his work. Sy also shows some signs of depression throughout the film. He is seems to be depressed on most days for most of each day and seems to have lost nearly all pleasure nearly all the time. Those two symptoms qualify him for possibly being clinically depressed but among those two symptoms are a few others. For example, Sy moves extremely slowly in the beginning and throughout the movie showing a loss of energy.