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  August 22, 2002 
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One Hour Photo
Here's a serious Robin Williams
The low budget One Hour Photo is marked by a stupendous performance

Arthur J Pais

Not too long ago Hollywood star Robin Williams, known for superb comic timing(Mrs Doubtfire, Flubber), declared he was tired of playing inoffensive, funny guys. He wanted some nasty piece of action, he said, adding he was even prepared to slash his usual fee ($15 million approximately).

At least three filmmakers took him up on his challenge.

Though the actor was not appreciated in Danny deVito's black comedy Death To Smoochy, in which he played a corrupt show host for a kids programme. The film bombed at the box-office early this year.

However, he was far better as a mystery writer who is also a vicious killer in the atmospheric Insomnia, directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento). The film, starring Al Pacino as a compromised detective conflicted between his past and the games played by the writer, was a moderate hit grossing around $67 million in North America.

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One of Williams' best performances can now be witnessed in One Hour Photo, a low budget film (made for about $20 million). Filmmaker Mark Romanek's 1988 comedy Static went unnoticed. Williams creates an enormously complex, utterly lonely but not entirely unsympathetic stalker called Seymour (Sy) Parish.

Frame by frame, we get to know more about the utterly average-looking Sy Parish and the scary, bewildering puzzle he is. Williams gives a controlled and often a minimalist performance that could earn him yet another Oscar nomination. The actor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Good Will Hunting (1997).

Parish, a manager of a photo shop, is obsessed with perfection. But his obsession is not just limited to his profession. For he has been 'living' with a family whose photographs he has been developing for many years. The most disturbing yet interesting part of the movie materialises when Parish snaps. His life was always out of focus but now everything seems blurred to him. A still from One Hour Photo

Apart from an outstanding performance by the thespian, the suspenseful and starkly haunting movie is also notable for its psychology and eerie atmosphere. Terrific word of mouth publicity should make this a sleeper chiller of the year.

Romanek does not rush to reveal why and how Parish has developed the obsession. He makes the audience slowly get into Parish's mind (not to forget his home) and make the terrifying discoveries.

Still, you cannot bring yourself to condemn Parish. He is sick but not a stalker who makes gruesome headlines.

One Hour Photo, which opened in New York and Los Angeles, on Wednesday will start expanding to other cities next week.

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