Funny in the head

One Hour Photo

Starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen

Directed by Mark…

One Hour Photo

Starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen

Directed by Mark Romanek

First of all, “One Hour Photo” is not a Robin Williams movie. I mean, yeah, he’s in it – at least they claim that’s him – and usually when he’s in a movie, it’s a Robin Williams movie, but this one’s not like that. This one’s different.

Audiences were taken back by the actor’s recent sinister roles in “Death to Smoochy” and “Insomnia,” but those were nothing. This one is the real departure. This is the one that makes up for “Patch Adams.”

Second, “One Hour Photo” is not the thriller it seems to be. It has a few thriller elements, but it’s really more of a character study, more quietly disturbing than aggressively scary. Sy Parrish (Williams) doesn’t run around murdering people – his condition isn’t nearly so obvious. But he watches “The Simpsons” without laughing.

Sy is a quiet, lonely man who develops film in a department store. It becomes apparent early on that he has an intense fondness for a particular family whose pictures he often develops: the Yorkins. He insists on personally handling all of their rolls of film, knows their names, and has their address memorized.

Nina and Will Yorkin (Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan), who have a young son, are slightly weirded out by Sy’s affection, but still none too worried about his intentions. The audience gets worried, though, when the scene shifts to Sy’s apartment, where he studies his personal copies of every picture he’s developed for the Yorkins. The film unfolds as a flashback, and the audience knows from the opening scene, in which Sy is in police custody, that his obsession will lead him to commit some horrible act. What that act will be, though, the viewer has to wait and see.

Give credit where credit is due: Williams is good at this. Really good. He lends Sy the perfect amount of vagueness, keeps the audience guessing as to just how troubled the man has become after years of constantly facing the things he so wishes he himself had.

The actor is led in this, the finest performance of his career, by the superb direction and writing of first-timer Mark Romanek. Williams understands the thoughtful portrait in Romanek’s screenplay and rises to the occasion, making Sy the difficult, tragic character he should be.

“One Hour Photo” is a promising debut for Romanek, who arrives from music video land. Music video directors more often than not turn out to be iffy feature directors, but every once in a while you get a David Fincher, director of “Se7en” and “Fight Club,” and Romanek may very well be a David Fincher. It’s good to have him.