One Hour Photo (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:190
Fresh:155
Rotten:35
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: Robin Williams is every effective in this creepy thriller.
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Viewed through our photographs, it would seem we have lived a joyous, leisurely existence. Sy Parrish (Robin Williams), who makes this observation, adversely leads a lonely life, operating a photo... [More]
Starring: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole
Director: Mark Romanek
Reviews for One Hour Photo
| Tomatometer | Critic | Review | Category |
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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. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Former video director Mark Romanek has written and directed a very entertaining, if overdesigned movie. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Oddly-moving, slow-burning thriller with a career-best performance from Robin Williams. Yes, that’s right. Robin Williams. Full Review |
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3.5/4 |
The stylistic flourishes are there, but they're done quietly and slowly, and besides, our attention is drawn to Williams. This is a fascinating and piercing character study, unpredictable in small ways that are made to seem vitally important. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Robin Williams has thankfully ditched the saccharine sentimentality of Bicentennial Man in favour of an altogether darker side. Full Review |
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The craftsmanship is so strenuously neat that every frame should be awarded a gold star, but there isn't a breath of spontaneous life. Full Review |
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5/5 |
Williams gauges the performance perfectly, starting out as a kind of Forrest Gump character but getting deeper and richer as the plot turns until we are both terrified of him and worried for him. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Click to read the article Full Review |
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Call it an exercise in threat management, free with the purchase of a photo album--or a movie ticket. Full Review |
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3/4 |
This is a brilliant, incredibly directed film with excellent performances all around from Nielsen, and Williams who deserves an Oscar nod. Full Review |
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This immaculately made first feature from noted musicvid and commercials director Mark Romanek provides Robin Williams with one of his creepiest, atypical roles, and the comic star responds with an unusually restrained performance... Full Review |
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In a story so reliant on detail as the engine for character action, it’s frustrating and annoying to see the film spiral down the gurgler because of a few (but crucial) lapses of attention to detail. Full Review |
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A- |
Robin Williams creates a character who earns our revulsion--and somehow also our sympathy. Full Review |
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3/4 |
Sy is a complete character with a physicality, inner monologue and motivation that we haven't seen from Mr. Williams in a long time. And it's a pleasure to watch. Full Review |
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B- |
Robin Williams' good work in contained in an uneven film, whose first half is an intriguing chronicle of urban alienation, but second part deteriorates into a presposterous thriller with a subplot of stalking and revenge--not unlike Fatal Attraction Full Review |
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3/5 |
This story begs for a harder focus, the kind of thing Stanley Kubrick was always good at, at least until he got a little too focused. What saves the film is Robin Williams in a very atypical role. Full Review |
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3/4 |
This is not the Robin Williams you are used to seeing. Full Review |
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3.5/4 |
What brings the film to a level beyond is Williams's superb performance and, in turn, Romanek's carefully calibrated direction. Full Review |
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B |
A music video is like espresso: a lot of visual power compressed into five minutes. A movie needs to know something of the rhythms of everyday life, or else the audience get dizzy and exhausted. Full Review |
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3/4 |
This isn't the Williams of Mrs. Doubtfire or, thank heavens, Jack or What Dreams May Come. Full Review |
CommentLatest News for One Hour Photo
December 03, 2008:
Mark Romanek to Direct Alex Garland's Never Let Me Go 
Prolific commercial and music video director Mark Romanek, who most recently directed One Hour Photo in 2002, will helm Alex Garland's Never Let Me Go, the film adaptation of... More...
February 09, 2007:
Mark Romanek to Direct New "Wolf Man"
We mentioned this story a while back, I believe, but now we have some solid progress, so here we go again: Universal is hot to remake "The Wolf Man," which would... More...
October 05, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Departed" Is Best Reviewed Wide Release of 2006
This week at the movies, we've got cops and robbers in Boston ("The Departed," starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon), chainsaw massacres in Texas... More...
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