In 2002, Robin Williams’ career took a dark turn with a trio of films that progressively delved deeper into darkness. This journey began with Danny DeVito’s Death to Smoochy, continued with Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, and culminated in the most chilling film of his career, Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo…VIDEO BELOW

In Death to Smoochy, Williams subverts his usual charm to portray a corrupt children’s entertainer. In Insomnia, he abandons his amiable persona entirely to play a menacing murderer. But it’s in One Hour Photo (released on August 21, 2002) that Williams embodies something even more terrifying: Sy Parrish, a lonely and obsessive photo technician at a big-box store…VIDEO BELOW

Unlike the rare curmudgeonly TV host or a crime novelist with a penchant for real-life crime, everyone has encountered a Sy Parrish. Sy lives a life of complete isolation. He has no friends, no family, no romantic partner—only a hamster as a companion…VIDEO BELOW

The hamster, mirroring Sy’s monotonous existence, spends its days running in a wheel, while Sy’s routine is equally cyclical: waking up, eating breakfast, going to work, processing photos of happy families, returning home, feeding the hamster, and going to bed. This cycle repeats daily.

One Hour Photo highlights Sy’s solitude through a mix of broad strokes and seemingly trivial observations, all captured by cinematographer Jeff Cronenwerth’s meticulous lens. Early in the film, Cronenwerth shows Sy arriving home, alone on a deserted sidewalk except for a passing stranger. The only signs of life are a couple of parked cars, suggesting a desolate neighborhood.

Despite the bleakness, the film’s tone is neither smug nor exploitative. Romanek, who also wrote the script, and Williams portray Sy with deep empathy, initially shown through his interactions with his favorite customers, the Yorkin family: Nina (Connie Nielsen), Will (Michael Vartan), and their kindhearted son, Jake (Dylan Smith). “When someone seems sad, they don’t have any friends, and people make fun of them, that makes me feel bad for them,” Jake tells his mom at bedtime, clutching a Hoberman sphere.

Nina, attempting to reassure Jake, lies: Sy isn’t lonely; he has people who care about him and likely a girlfriend too. However, Cronenwerth’s camera exposes this lie. Apart from his customers, Sy’s closest human connection is the stacks of duplicate photos of the Yorkins that he secretly prints and arranges on his wall. When a waitress sees Sy looking through these photos and asks if they’re his family, he lies, claiming they are. This moment marks the shift from innocent fondness to dangerous obsession.

Williams’ portrayal of Sy Parrish in One Hour Photo remains one of the most unsettling performances of his career, marking the film as a standout in the genre of psychological thrillers.